Infrastructure Finance Counsel in 2026: A $850 Million Median Ticket

A general counsel choosing infrastructure finance law firms is buying for bigger deals than the typical finance mandate. Sartori & Partners data show 585 infrastructure deals on record in the 12 months to October 2026, and the ones with a disclosed value ran at a median of $850 million. Banking and finance work in every sector, 3,053 deals in the same months, ran at a median of $545 million. Finance lawyers are also far more present in this sector than elsewhere: they were on 18.5% of infrastructure deals, against 6.3% of all dated deals. For a company that owns or builds roads, ports, airports, networks or social infrastructure, the message is simple: size the finance bench to the sector, do not borrow it from a general lending panel.

The infrastructure median of $850 million is 1.6 times the $545 million median for banking and finance deals. Each median rests only on deals whose value was made public. In infrastructure that was 39.3% of the sector's deals; in banking and finance it was 47.7%. The sector figure therefore describes a smaller slice of its work, the deals that were announced with a price, and a buyer should read it that way rather than as the size of every mandate. Two more limits matter. The sector median covers every infrastructure deal whatever the practice, offerings and acquisitions included, while the finance median covers finance deals in every sector. No median exists for finance work on infrastructure deals alone, so this compares a sector with a practice, not a price for the pair. The direction is still plain. On disclosed deals, the sector's median of $850 million sits above the practice's median of $545 million. Ask each firm on the shortlist for the size range of the infrastructure deals its finance partners closed in the last 12 months, and weigh that answer above general lending volume.

Sartori & Partners counted banking and finance lawyers on 108 infrastructure deals in 12 months. That is 18.5% of the sector's deals, against 6.3% of all dated deals on record, an over-weight of 2.9 times. Seen from the practice side, the same deals are only 3.5% of the practice's work, behind banks and financial institutions at 17.8% and power and renewables at 7.8%. Both readings hold at once: infrastructure is a small client sector for finance lawyers, and finance lawyers are a large presence in infrastructure. The deal labels agree, with project and infrastructure finance on 19.8% of the sector's deals and banking and lending on 6.2%. Capital markets lawyers, at 30.1%, and corporate lawyers, at 22.1%, appear often too; one deal can involve several practices, so these shares overlap and are never added. The consequence is about selection. Because the sector is a small part of a typical finance group's work, the partners who close infrastructure financings may be a small group inside a large practice: ask for their names, not for the practice.

Infrastructure deal flow rose 49.1%, from 385 to 574 deals in the settled 12-month windows. Banking and finance work rose 12.1% over the same windows, from 2,710 to 3,039, and the whole deal record rose 10.6%. The sector grew much faster than the practice that staffs a large part of it. Deal counts here are matters on record, not fees, so the gap says nothing about revenue; it says the infrastructure share of a finance partner's calendar is getting heavier. For a borrower or sponsor with a financing planned in the next 12 months, the practical step is to engage counsel early and write the staffing, by name, into the engagement letter.

Lateral moves are a different measure from deals: they count lawyers who changed firms, not matters. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, partner hiring in banking and finance rose 10.6%, from 546 to 604 lateral partners in the settled windows. All lateral hiring in the practice rose 14.1%, from 1,766 to 2,015 moves. Partners made up 30.8% of the practice's moves over the latest 12 months. Set beside infrastructure deals, which rose 49.1%, the finance partner market grew at a far gentler rate. This is a comparison, not a cause, and the lateral figures cover finance partners in every sector. The firms that hired the most finance partners were DLA Piper, Mayer Brown and Sidley Austin. For a company, the reading is about continuity. When the partner who runs your infrastructure financings changes firms, ask early whether the associates who know your documents move too, and keep a second partner on the relationship so the work does not stall.

The two lists answer different questions. The infrastructure list ranks firms on all of the sector's deals, in every practice; the banking and finance list ranks firms on all finance deals, in every sector. No list ranks finance work on infrastructure deals alone. Counted name by name, eight firms sit on both: Clifford Chance, Latham & Watkins, Milbank, White & Case, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Cahill Gordon & Reindel and A&O Shearman. Kirkland & Ellis and Linklaters are on the infrastructure list only, and Jones Day and Hogan Lovells Cadwalader on the finance list only. The lists do not show which practice carried each firm's sector work, so nothing follows from a name missing on one side. The scale differs too: the first firm on infrastructure deals sits in the 41-60 band, the first on finance deals in the 151-250 band. For a large infrastructure financing, the eight names on both lists are the natural first calls; test the firms on one list only on the partner who would lead your deal.

Price and staff for larger tickets. Disclosed infrastructure deals ran at a median of $850 million against $545 million for finance work, so ask for partners whose recent deals sit near the sector's size, not the practice's. Treat finance as a core bench, not a support role: finance lawyers were on 18.5% of infrastructure deals, 2.9 times their share of the whole deal record. Book time early, because sector deal flow rose 49.1% while finance deals rose 12.1%. Start the shortlist with the eight firms on both lists, then judge each on the named partner and the team under them. If you are hiring a finance lawyer in-house, expect competition: partner hiring in the practice rose 10.6%, and the lawyers with infrastructure deals on their record are a narrow part of that market. Sartori & Partners builds these figures from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.