Hospitality M&A Counsel in 2026: The Work Fell, the Bench Did Not

A general counsel at a hotel group or a leisure operator who asks an AI assistant for hotel and leisure M&A lawyers will get a list of names; the more useful question is how much sector work those lawyers have in hand. Sartori & Partners data show that hospitality and leisure deal work fell 8.6% between the last two settled 12-month windows, from 698 to 638 matters. Over the same windows corporate and M&A deal work across all sectors rose 9.5%. Corporate lawyers still worked on 30.7% of the sector's deals, more than any other practice, and lateral moves of corporate lawyers between firms rose 15.8%. For a company planning an acquisition or a sale, fewer sector mandates mean room to choose, and a busier practice means asking who will staff the deal.

The two counts moved in opposite directions over identical windows, October 2024 to September 2025 against October 2025 to September 2026. Hospitality and leisure deals fell 8.6%, from 698 to 638. Corporate and M&A deals, counted across every sector, rose 9.5%, from 10,198 to 11,170. The deal record as a whole rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216, so the sector moved against both the practice and the wider market. No trend exists for hospitality M&A on its own. The sector figure covers every matter on record for hotel and leisure clients, court and trademark filings included, and the practice figure covers corporate work for clients in any sector, so neither count explains the other.

Hospitality and leisure is a small part of the deal record: 1.4% of all dated deals over 12 months, or 652 matters for 335 distinct clients. For a company with a mandate to place, the reading is simple. Sector mandates are fewer this year, while the corporate teams that staff them carry more work from other industries. Ask a firm for its team's current load, not only for its hotel and leisure record.

Of the 652 hospitality and leisure deals on record in the 12 months to October 2026, corporate and M&A lawyers worked on 200, or 30.7%. Capital markets lawyers were on 17.8% and intellectual property lawyers on 17.0%, often on the same matters. A deal can carry several practices and many carry no practice label at all, so these shares overlap and are never added together. Set against the whole deal record, the corporate share in hospitality runs at 1.3 times the practice's 23.3% of all deals, while the capital markets share sits under that practice's 26.4% market-wide.

The deal type labels give a second view. M&A was the label on 22.9% of the sector's deals, against 19.3% of all deals, while disputes and investigations carried 29.1%. Where a value was disclosed, on 14.4% of the sector's deals, the median was $730 million, against $315 million for corporate and M&A deals in all sectors; the sector median covers every kind of matter with a disclosed value, not acquisitions alone. A firm's hospitality record can rest on disputes or offerings as much as on transactions, so ask each candidate for the M&A matters its proposed team closed in the sector.

The list below counts every hospitality and leisure matter on record, acquisitions, offerings, financings and disputes alike; Sartori & Partners publish no separate firm list for hospitality M&A. Latham & Watkins, Barnes & Thornburg and Davis Polk & Wardwell sit in the 21-40 band of deals advised, and the next seven share the 11-20 band. Inside a band the order is not a measure of volume.

The corporate and M&A list counts the practice's work for clients in every sector, and it opens far higher, with three firms in the 401-700 band. Read name by name, three firms appear on both lists. Latham & Watkins ranks 1st on corporate deals as well, Kirkland & Ellis ranks 2nd there against 9th in the sector, and CMS ranks 6th there against 4th in the sector. The other seven hospitality names are not in the practice's top 10.

The two lists answer different questions: one shows who works for hotel and leisure clients on any matter, the other who runs corporate work in any sector. The three shared names are a natural start for a shortlist. For each of the others, ask which hospitality acquisitions or sales its partners have led in the past 12 months, and who would staff yours.

New York heads the city list, with lawyers there on 26.4% of hospitality and leisure deals, and London follows at 15.2%. Chicago comes third at 13.2%, ahead of Washington, DC at 9.9%. That Chicago share is higher than in consumer goods and retail, at 11.1%, or in industrial manufacturing, at 10.9%. Each figure is the share of the sector's deals, among those with a known lawyer location, on which lawyers in that city worked; a matter staffed from New York and Chicago counts in both, so the rows are never summed and say nothing about how many lawyers sit in each office.

Europe carries part of the work as well: lawyers in Frankfurt worked on 5.8% of the sector's deals and lawyers in Paris on 4.5%. These figures cover every hospitality matter, not only M&A. Chicago's place in this list is the practical point: when a firm pitches for a hotel or leisure deal, ask whether Chicago lawyers would sit on the team, and if not, which office would carry the work they do on this sector's matters.

Corporate and M&A lawyers changed firms more often this year. In the Sartori & Partners lateral record, moves of lawyers into corporate and M&A practices rose 15.8%, from 2,532 to 2,933 between the same settled windows. Lateral partner moves in the practice rose 12.2%, from 778 to 873, and 539 firms hired at least one corporate lawyer in 12 months. These are counts of people moving, not of deals, and they set the hospitality figure in context rather than explain it.

Put side by side, the two readings point the same way for a buyer of legal services. Corporate lawyers kept moving between firms while hospitality and leisure work fell 8.6%, and the practice's deal count grew across other sectors, so a hotel or leisure mandate sits beside more corporate work from other industries. A lateral market this active also means the partner who ran a company's last deal may now sit at another firm, so confirm the team by name before signing.

Use the fall in sector work as leverage. With hospitality and leisure deals down 8.6% year on year, there are fewer sector mandates for the firms on the list to share; ask two or three of them to pitch and compare teams and fees. Start the shortlist with the three firms on both lists, then test the sector-only names on M&A matters they closed, since corporate lawyers worked on 30.7% of sector deals and the rest of a firm's record may be disputes or offerings. Ask which Chicago, New York or London partners would staff the deal. And because corporate and M&A deal work across all sectors rose 9.5%, ask each firm who will staff the deal, and name the lead partner and the core team in the engagement letter. Sartori & Partners figures come from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.