Disputes on Record Rose in 2026. Partner Hiring Did Not Follow

Firm leaders who watch court calendars fill up tend to ask a simple question: are law firms hiring litigation partners to keep pace with the work? In 2026 the answer is no faster than a year ago. Sartori & Partners data show 11,886 disputes and investigations matters on record in the 12 months to September 2026, against 10,128 in the 12 months before. That count rose 17.4%. Over the same two windows, lateral partner hiring in litigation held flat (+0.9%), and in intellectual property it held flat (+8.0%). Those are the two practices that do much of this work, and neither added partners at anything like the pace of the matters. One caution comes first. This is a count of matters on record, not of fees. It leans on intellectual property disputes taken from public court and trademark-office records: intellectual property lawyers appear on 42.3% of the type's matters.

Measured on settled windows, the disputes count rose 17.4%, from 10,128 to 11,886 matters. M&A rose 8.9% on its own settled windows, from 8,475 to 9,226. Capital markets rose 10.0%, from 11,541 to 12,698. All dated deals together rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216, so disputes grew at 1.6 times the rate of the whole deal record. In the Sartori & Partners deal records, the type appeared on 25.0% of all dated deals in the 12 months to October 2026, or 12,054 matters in that window.

For a hiring partner, the faster rise is a signal about how many matters pass through courts and trademark offices. It is not proof that clients are buying more partner time. The rest of this report shows why the two have come apart, and what that means for a litigation or intellectual property search.

Disputes and investigations is built differently from M&A or capital markets. Intellectual property lawyers appear on 42.3% of its matters, and litigation lawyers on 14.5%. Many intellectual property entries come from public dockets and trademark-office filings, which capture oppositions and infringement suits that a firm would rarely announce. Seen from the practice side, 95.3% of all intellectual property matters on record sit in this one type. Each share below counts matters involving a practice; one matter can carry several practices, so the figures overlap and are not a split of the type.

Value points the same way. Only 3.1% of disputes matters carry a disclosed value, against 10.3% for M&A and 28.6% for capital markets, so the type cannot be sized in dollars. Its matters are also spread across 6,064 distinct clients in 12 months, against 5,239 for M&A. Many small, public matters without a disclosed value are the kind of growth a firm can often absorb with the team it already has. Before reading the rising count as demand for a new partner, check how much of your own disputes intake is filings and oppositions rather than contested, fee-bearing work.

Litigation is involved in 39.9% of all lateral moves in the Sartori & Partners lateral database, so its partner market is the one most firms feel first. Lateral partner hires in litigation numbered 1,505 in the 12 months to September 2026, against 1,492 a year earlier: partner hiring held flat (+0.9%). Litigation lateral moves at every level rose 7.5%, from 5,281 to 5,679. With the partner count level, the increase came from associates and counsel. Partners were 27.4% of litigation lateral moves in the 12 months to October 2026, and associates 57.7%.

The pattern fits firms that add associates and counsel to work a rising volume and treat a partner hire as a decision about clients, not about capacity. A litigation partner search in this market is not a race against a hiring wave. It is a search for the smaller number of partners whose practice and clients fit the platform.

Intellectual property lawyers sit on 42.3% of disputes matters, yet the practice's partner market did not move either. Lateral partner hires in intellectual property were 352 in the 12 months to September 2026 against 326 before, and partner hiring held flat (+8.0%): on counts this size, a gap of that order is within normal variation. The count of intellectual property lateral moves at every level held flat (+7.2%), from 987 to 1,058. Partners weigh more in this practice's mix, 34.4% of its lateral moves against 27.4% in litigation, so a level partner count shapes its capacity more directly.

Trademark oppositions and many patent filings are run by small specialist teams, which helps explain why a growing docket does not turn into partner demand. A firm that wants more intellectual property disputes work should plan to build it from its own bench and from counsel close to promotion. The lateral partner pool is not expanding to meet it.

At the top, the firm list for disputes is flat. The first firm by matters on record, Greenberg Traurig, sits in the 251-400 band of deals advised, while the first firm across all dated deals sits in the 1,200+ band. Ranks two to five share the 151-250 band, and ranks six to ten the 101-150 band. No single firm dominates this record.

Set the two lists side by side and only two names appear on both: Greenberg Traurig and Barnes & Thornburg. The bands count different things, deals advised in the first list and individual lateral hires in the second, so the lists are not a league table. They do show that the firms carrying the most matters on record are, for the most part, not the firms adding litigation partners fastest by lateral hire. A competitor's docket is a poor guide to its hiring plans, and a candidate's value is better judged by the matters the candidate brings than by the size of the firm's record.

Do not size a litigation partner budget from the disputes count. The count rose 17.4% on settled windows while litigation partner hiring held flat (+0.9%), and the market did not treat one as a reason for the other. Read the intellectual property side of the record as filings and oppositions: with 3.1% of matters carrying a disclosed value, it tells you where activity is, not where fees are. Expect the same competition for roughly the same pool of candidates as last year. The latest settled 12 months held 1,505 litigation and 352 intellectual property lateral partner hires, both steady against the year before. Time a search around a candidate's portable clients, not around market volume. Where the need is capacity for rising filings, an associate or counsel hire answers it faster than a partner search.