Project Finance Deals Rose in 2026 and Pulled Partners

Firm leaders who ask about project finance lawyers demand usually want to know one thing: when the deals grow, which lawyers do firms go out and hire? Sartori & Partners data give a clear answer for 2026. Project and infrastructure finance deals numbered 997 in the 12 months to September 2026, against 817 in the 12 months before: the count rose 22.0%. In the projects and infrastructure practice, the group that works most of these deals, lateral partner hires went from 182 to 212, so partner hiring held flat (+16.5%). Hiring at all levels in the same practice held flat (+1.3%), at 537 moves against 530. The extra work went to partners, not to junior lawyers.

Measured on settled windows, the deal type rose 22.0%, from 817 to 997 deals. All dated deals together rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216. Project finance therefore grew at 2.1 times the pace of the full record. The type is a narrow slice of that record, present on 2.1% of all dated deals and on 1,002 deals in the 12 months to October 2026. These are deals on record, announced by firms or found in public registers, and they say nothing about fees.

Where a value is public, these deals are large. A disclosed value sits on 35.0% of them, with a median of $457 million, and they spread across 560 distinct clients in 12 months. Large, long-dated financings need someone senior to own the client and the lenders. That is the first clue to why the hiring went where it did.

The projects and infrastructure practice appears on 80.5% of project and infrastructure finance deals, so its hiring is the closest read on how firms staffed the rise. Partner hiring there held flat (+16.5%), from 182 to 212 lateral partner hires. Total projects lateral hiring held flat (+1.3%), from 530 to 537 moves. Moves other than partner hires numbered 325 in the latest settled window, against 348 the year before.

The level mix shows the result. Partners were 38.6% of projects lateral moves in the 12 months to October 2026, against 27.7% across all practices, a gap of 10.9 points. Over three years the projects partner share was 35.0%, so the latest year leans further toward partners than the practice's own record. For a firm planning a projects build, this means the lateral pool now moves at the senior end. Below partner level the lateral count did not grow, so junior capacity will come from a firm's own ranks more than from the market.

The projects pattern is not the market's. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, partner hiring across all practices rose 8.4%, from 3,558 to 3,858. Lateral moves at every level rose 9.0%, from 13,128 to 14,305. In the wider market the two lines rose side by side. In projects, partner hiring grew at 2.0 times the market's partner rate, while the practice's total stayed flat.

Projects lawyers who move also go to large platforms. Of projects lateral moves, 71.1% joined firms with 1,000+ lawyers, against 53.6% in the market. A firm below that size competes for the same projects partners with less balance sheet behind its offer, and should expect a longer search.

Power and renewables clients appear on 49.3% of project and infrastructure finance deals, against 4.1% of all dated deals. Banks and financial institutions follow at 13.2%, and infrastructure clients at 11.6%, against 1.2% market-wide. Each share counts deals involving a sector; a deal can carry several, and about one deal in six has no sector on record, so the shares overlap and do not split the type.

For a hiring partner, the sector record of a candidate matters more than a title. A projects partner whose deals sit in power and renewables, a sector present on 494 of the type's deals in 12 months, brings the client base the work is built on.

Banking and finance lawyers appear on 32.5% of project and infrastructure finance deals, roughly a third of them, against 6.3% of all dated deals. The overlap shows in hiring too. Sartori & Partners records show that 46.7% of projects lateral moves also carry banking and finance. A lender-side financing partner is often the same person a projects group is trying to hire. When a projects search runs thin, widen it to banking partners with project lending on their record, and count them as part of the same pool rather than a fallback.

Clifford Chance has the most project and infrastructure finance deals on record over 12 months, in the 61-100 band of deals advised. White & Case, Latham & Watkins and Hogan Lovells Cadwalader follow in the 41-60 band.

No firm appears on both top 10 lists. The partner hirers, led by Mayer Brown and Kirkland & Ellis in the 6-10 band, are firms building a projects bench. Several deal leaders instead sit on the list of hirers at all levels: White & Case, Latham & Watkins, CMS, DLA Piper and Milbank all rank in the projects top 10 by lateral hires, in the 11-20 band. The bands count different things, deals advised in one list and individual hires in the others, so they are not a league table. The deal leaders hire across levels; the partner market is driven by firms that want into the work.

Budget for a partner market, not an associate market. Projects partner hiring held flat (+16.5%) on settled windows while total hiring held flat (+1.3%), so the competition sits at the senior end. Expect rival offers from firms building a bench, many of them outside the group with the most deals. Judge candidates on sector first: with 49.3% of deals involving power and renewables clients, that record is the strongest test of fit. Treat banking partners with project lending as part of the pool, since banking lawyers sit on 32.5% of the deals. Look hard at Houston, which takes 9.6% of projects lateral arrivals at an index of 409 against the market. Where the need is capacity rather than clients, promote from within: the lateral associate pool in projects is not moving the way the partner pool is.