Who Borrows: Banks Are 2.4 Times Their Market Share in Lending

Most rankings of bank lending law firms start with the advisers. The more useful question for a firm building a lending bench is who sits across the table. Sartori & Partners data show 1,580 dated bank lending deals in the 12 months to October 2026, and their client mix is not the mix of the wider deal market. Banks and financial institutions, real estate owners and power producers turn up far more often than their share of all deals would predict, while drug developers and software companies turn up less. For a law-firm leader, that mix says which client relationships a lateral lending partner needs to bring, and which ones belong to a different desk.

Banks and financial institutions appear in 16.8% of bank lending deals, against 7.1% of all dated deals. That is 2.4 times their market share and a gap of 9.7 points. Part of this is structural: banks arrange, syndicate and take part in facilities as lenders, and they also borrow to fund their own balance sheets, so a bank can be the client on either side of a loan.

Real assets come next. Real estate clients sit on 6.9% of lending deals against 4.5% of the market, and power and renewables clients on 6.5% against 4.1%. Further down the list the same pattern holds for sectors with heavy physical assets: mining and metals at 3.4% against 1.6%, industrial manufacturing at 3.3% against 2.0%, and utilities at 3.0% against 2.0%.

The sectors that drive the rest of the deal market are quieter here. Pharma and biotech clients appear in 3.1% of lending deals against 6.8% of all deals, and technology and software clients in 4.3% against 6.8%. Some deals carry no client sector and one deal can carry several, so these shares are compared side by side, never added.

A lending partner whose clients are banks, property owners or energy producers brings the relationships this work actually runs on. A partner whose book is mostly growth companies or drug developers will find less of it in bank lending, whatever the headline volume.

Set bank lending against leveraged and acquisition finance and the two client bases part ways. Banks and financial institutions sit on 16.8% of bank lending deals but on 11.3% of leveraged finance deals. Leveraged finance is led instead by financial sponsors, on 23.8% of its deals against 6.9% of all dated deals. Further down, the two lists sit close: asset managers and funds appear on 3.4% of lending deals and 4.8% of leveraged finance deals, oil and gas clients on 3.2% and 2.6%.

The two finance types also moved at different speeds. Leveraged and acquisition finance deals rose 18.8% on settled windows, from 653 to 776. Values are published less often there: a deal value is disclosed on 30.5% of leveraged finance deals, against 57.2% of bank lending deals, where a majority of deals carry a public figure.

Hiring a lending partner and hiring a leveraged finance partner are two different searches. One follows bank and asset-owner relationships, the other is built around sponsors. A firm that wants both should recruit for both, not expect one partner to carry the two client bases.

On settled 12-month windows, bank lending deals rose 11.4%, from 1,422 in the 12 months to September 2025 to 1,584 in the 12 months to September 2026. All dated deals rose 10.6% over the same windows, from 43,590 to 48,216, so lending kept pace with the wider market rather than outrunning it.

The senior bench moved with the work. In the Sartori & Partners lateral records, banking and finance partner hiring rose 10.6%: 604 lateral partners in the latest settled year against 546 the year before. Lateral hiring at all levels in the practice rose 14.1%, from 1,766 to 2,015 moves, and partners make up 30.8% of the practice's lateral moves.

Because the work and the partner moves grew at a similar pace, the lending market is not short of senior candidates in the way a faster-growing type can be. It is a market where competition for partners rises with the work. Firms that wait for a quiet quarter to hire will meet the same rivals they meet today.

Banking and finance lawyers appear on 86.0% of bank lending deals. Capital markets lawyers appear on 11.5%, projects and infrastructure lawyers on 4.9% and real estate lawyers on 2.0%. Leveraged finance is narrower: banking and finance lawyers sit on 91.9% of those deals, and the next practice, corporate and M&A, on 4.6%.

The capital markets overlap fits the client base. Banks fund themselves through both loans and notes, so the same institutions that borrow on a facility also come to market with debt securities, and some lending work is staffed with lawyers from both groups. For a hiring firm, a lending partner who works easily with the debt capital markets team is worth more than one who works alone.

Jones Day ranks first by bank lending deals advised, alone in the 101-150 band. The four firms ranked second to fifth, starting with Latham & Watkins, sit one band lower at 61-100, and the last three places of the top 10 sit at 21-40. In leveraged and acquisition finance the first place goes to Latham & Watkins, at 101-150.

The lending advisers are not the firms recruiting banking partners most actively. None of the ten lending advisers appears among the top 10 hirers of banking and finance partners, where DLA Piper ranks first in the 11-20 band. At all levels, three of them rank among the top 10 banking hirers: Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Milbank.

That split gives a challenger room. The firms with the most lending mandates are not the ones bidding hardest for banking partners, so a firm recruiting a lending partner competes mainly with other active hirers, not with the first adviser on the list.

Recruit for the client base, not the label. With banks and financial institutions on 16.8% of lending deals and real estate and power clients above their market share, the test in diligence is which banks, property owners and energy producers will follow the partner. Sponsor relationships belong to a leveraged finance search.

Plan for steady competition. Lending deals rose 11.4% and lateral banking partner hiring rose 10.6%, so rival firms are hiring at the pace the work grows. Move when the candidate is ready, not when the market looks calm.

Build the desk with its neighbors. Capital markets lawyers appear on 11.5% of lending deals, and the client sectors that dominate lending also issue debt. A lending hire that fits next to an existing debt capital markets or projects team will convert faster than one that has to build alone.