Media Capital Markets Counsel in 2026: Disputes Outrun Offerings

Sartori & Partners data show that disputes & investigations was the largest single deal type in media and entertainment over the last 12 months, on 39.8% of the sector's 972 dated deals. For a general counsel hiring capital markets lawyers for media companies, that sets the frame: the offering counsel you choose works in a sector where contested matters and IP fill more of the docket than issuance does. Capital markets lawyers were on 13.4% of media deals, third behind corporate and intellectual property. Counts are matters on record, including court and trademark-office filings, taken from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. They measure activity, not fees.

Set against every dated deal, the media mix leans toward contested work. Disputes & investigations were 39.8% of media deals against 25.0% of all deals, a gap of 14.8 points. M&A also ran above the market, at 28.0% of media deals against 19.3% overall. Capital markets went the other way. It was 12.6% of media deals by type, while across all deals it was the largest type at 25.7%, a share 2.0 times the media figure.

Two cautions apply. A deal can carry more than one type, so the shares overlap, and some deals carry no type at all, so the rows never add to a whole. The direction is still clear: issuance is a smaller part of media legal work than of the deal market at large. For a media issuer, ask every candidate firm to separate its media offerings from its media disputes and IP filings before you compare their sector credentials.

By practice, corporate and M&A lawyers were on 33.5% of media deals and intellectual property lawyers on 26.3%. Capital markets came third, on 130 deals or 13.4% of the sector's total. That is well under the practice's weight in the wider market, where capital markets lawyers were on 26.4% of all dated deals, the highest share of any practice.

Intellectual property runs the opposite way to capital markets: 26.3% of media deals against 11.1% of all deals. The weight of disputes does not show up as litigation lawyers, who were on only 4.7% of media deals. Deal counts include matters from public court and trademark-office records, which are many in intellectual property. The consequence for a buyer of legal services: capital markets work in media is a specialist slice, and a firm's overall media volume is a weak guide to its issuance depth in the sector.

Sartori & Partners figures place lawyers in New York on 43.4% of media deals with a known lawyer location. Washington, DC follows at 18.3%, Los Angeles at 16.2% and London at 13.6%. One deal can count in several cities, so each figure is a share of the sector's deals, never a split of its lawyers.

Capital markets hiring is concentrated in a different place. Of the capital markets lawyers who changed firms in the last 12 months, 25.0% joined in New York and 11.0% in London. Over three years, Los Angeles took 1.9% of the practice's lateral moves. The two measures differ, deals against moves, but they point the same way for Los Angeles: a city on a sizeable share of media deals sees few capital markets lawyers change firms. A media company based on the West Coast should expect its offering team to be staffed at least partly from New York.

Media deals were steady over the settled windows: 970 in the latest 12 months against 931 a year earlier, so the sector's count held flat (+4.2%). Capital markets deals across every sector went from 11,838 to 13,024, and the practice's count rose 10.0%. The deal market as a whole rose 10.6% over the same windows. The capital markets practice is handling more deals than a year ago while the media sector is not adding to its count. For a media issuer, the practical step is to fix offering counsel early, before the window you plan to use, rather than assume the team will be free.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral records, capital markets lawyers made 609 moves between firms in the latest settled 12 months against 571 the year before, a gap inside the noise: the practice's lateral hiring held flat (+6.7%). Lawyers whose own focus is media and entertainment moved more often, 183 against 140, so that group rose 30.7%. Partners were 54.4% of the media-focused movers, against 31.5% of capital markets movers. Los Angeles took 23.4% of the media-focused moves.

These hiring figures sit beside the deal counts; they do not explain them. What they tell a company is where new names come from. Media know-how is changing firms at a faster pace, much of it at partner level, while the capital markets bench is holding still. Weigh a firm's existing issuance partners above its recent media hires when the mandate is an offering.

Sartori & Partners ranks the firms on all media and entertainment deals, across every practice, and separately the firms on all capital markets deals, across every client sector. No list exists for media capital markets work alone. Checked name by name, one firm sits on both top 10 lists: Latham & Watkins, first on the media list and 2nd on the capital markets list.

Three firms from the media list also rank among the ten that hired the most capital markets lawyers laterally over 12 months: Latham & Watkins, Greenberg Traurig and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Treat the lists as a starting point, not a verdict. A place on the media list reflects all of a firm's media work, disputes and IP included, and a place on the capital markets list reflects issuance for every sector. Ask each firm for its media offerings specifically.

With disputes at 39.8% of the sector's deals and capital markets lawyers on 13.4%, a media company buys issuance advice in a market shaped by litigation and IP. Four steps follow. First, split the brief: choose offering counsel on capital markets record, then check it against the firm's media docket rather than the reverse. Second, look to New York, where lawyers worked on the largest share of media deals and where the practice hires more lawyers than in any other city. Third, book early, because the practice's deal count rose 10.0% while media's held flat. Fourth, when a firm presents a new media hire, ask whether that lawyer has worked on offerings or on disputes.