City monitor · November 2026
Portland: lateral market monitor
Lawyers who joined a new firm in Portland over the last 12 months: how many, at what level, in which practices and with which firms.
The last 12 months: November 2025 to October 2026
- 59
- Lateral moves, 12 monthsNovember 2025 to October 2026
- -12.7%
- Year on yearSettled 12-month windows
- 20.3%
- Partner share of moves
- 27
- Firms that hired
What the data show
In the Sartori & Partners lateral record, 59 lawyers joined a new firm in Portland from November 2025 to October 2026, 0.4% of all lateral moves we tracked. On settled windows the count went from 79 to 69 (-12.7%), a change inside the noise of the two counts, so we read it as flat.
At 20.3%, partners are a smaller slice of arrivals than in the market as a whole (27.7%). 13.6% of movers stepped up a level when they changed firm, against 12.9% for the market.
- Partner20.3%
- Counsel27.1%
- Associate52.5%
Lateral hires in Portland were spread across 27 firms. The ten firms at the head of the hiring table took 66.1% of arrivals (12.9% market-wide), so hiring here is concentrated. Miller Nash ranks first by lateral arrivals, in the 6-10 band.
By practice, Litigation & Disputes comes first, involved in 55.9% of arrivals here (39.9% across the market). 37.0% of movers also changed city, against 20.5% market-wide.
For a firm planning a hire in Portland, a flat market means candidates are not being pulled by a wave: the case for a move has to come from the platform.
Firms by rank and band
Each firm appears as a rank and a band, never an exact count, and only with at least 10 moves in the window.
| Rank | Firm | Moves (band) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miller Nash | 6-10 |
| 2 | Buchalter | 3-5 |
| 3 | Fisher & Phillips | 3-5 |
| 4 | Dentons | 3-5 |
| 5 | Littler Mendelson | 3-5 |
| 6 | Ballard Spahr | 3-5 |
| 7 | Stoel Rives | 3-5 |
| Rank | Firm | Moves (band) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fisher & Phillips | 6-10 |
| 2 | Buchalter | 3-5 |
| 3 | Epstein Becker & Green | 3-5 |
| 4 | Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker | 3-5 |
| 5 | Miller Nash | 3-5 |
| 6 | Greenberg Traurig | 3-5 |
| 7 | Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith | 3-5 |
Related monitors and reports
Practices in Portland
- Litigation & Disputes33 moves
Other cities
- New York
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- Washington, DC
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- Columbus
Hiring in this market
Reports
- Employment Law in 28.6% of Portland Moves Over 3 Years, Above Seattle
Employment law runs through 28.6% of Portland lateral moves over 3 years, 2.6 times its market share and above Seattle and Denver. Counsel take a far larger slice of hiring than elsewhere, and volume is flat.
November 11, 2026 · November 2026
Edition November 2026. Window: November 2025 to October 2026. Source: Sartori & Partners, from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. Methodology. Spot an error? [email protected].
For law firm leaders
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