Semiconductor Capital Markets in 2026: Deals Up, Partner Hiring Flat

A chipmaker weighing capital markets law firms for semiconductor companies is buying at a moment when demand and the lateral partner market moved apart. Sartori & Partners data show electronics and semiconductor deals rose 33.9% year on year, from 601 to 805 in the settled 12-month windows. That count covers every deal in the sector, whatever the practice. Over the same windows, lateral partner hiring in capital markets held flat (+1.1%), at 185 partners changing firms against 183 a year earlier. A lateral move is a partner leaving one firm for another. It says how many senior capital markets lawyers came onto the open market, not how many partners any firm employs. For the issuer, that is the hiring problem in short: its sector got busier, and the flow of capital markets partners between firms stayed where it was.

Each reading belongs next to its own two counts. Electronics and semiconductor deals rose 33.9%, from 601 to 805. Capital markets lateral partner hiring held flat (+1.1%), at 185 against 183. Lateral hiring at every level in the practice held flat (+6.7%), at 609 moves against 571. The capital markets practice's own deal count rose 10.0%, from 11,838 to 13,024, close to the 10.6% rise for all dated deals. Medical devices, where capital markets lawyers sit on 44.4% of deals, gives the contrast: its deal count held flat (+6.9%), at 810 against 758. The semiconductor rise is a whole-sector figure. It counts M&A, disputes and venture deals as well as capital markets work, and no trend for capital markets work on semiconductor deals alone is published. What the readings do show is direction. A firm that wants to staff more semiconductor work by hiring a capital markets partner from a rival draws on a lateral market no larger than a year ago, so an issuer should expect the partners it wants to be carrying more live mandates, and should ask how many.

Capital markets lawyers worked on 52.5% of electronics and semiconductor deals in 12 months, or 415 deals, against 26.4% of all dated deals. That is 2.0 times the practice's rate across the market. In medical devices the same share is 44.4%, so capital markets lawyers sit on a larger share of chip and electronics deals than of device deals. Corporate and M&A lawyers were on 29.0% of the sector's deals and intellectual property lawyers on 10.6%. One deal can involve several practices, so these shares overlap and are never added together. The consequence for a semiconductor company is that capital markets counsel is a standing relationship rather than an occasional purchase: more than half of the sector's deals, 52.5%, involved it. When the corporate and patent teams sit at the same firm, agree early who leads a deal that touches all three.

Seen from inside the practice, the picture reverses. Electronics and semiconductors was the client sector on 415 capital markets deals in 12 months, 3.3% of the practice's 12,684. Banks and financial institutions were the client sector on 13.8% of the practice's deals and pharma and biotech on 13.7%; medical devices sat at 2.7%. Many deals carry no sector label, so these shares are not a split of the practice and do not add to a whole. In the Sartori & Partners deal record a count is matters on record, not fees, so the share shows how often the practice meets chip and electronics clients, not what they pay. The issuer depends on the practice far more than the practice depends on the sector. A capital markets partner can run a full book of bank and pharma deals and see few semiconductor issuers in a year. Ask the proposed lead how many electronics and semiconductor deals they ran in the past 12 months, and who on the team has drafted the sector's risk disclosure before.

38.5% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in New York, 15.7% with lawyers in Washington and 14.9% with lawyers in Hong Kong. Beijing follows: 9.9% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers there. One deal can count in several cities, so the shares overlap and are never summed. For comparison, 37.3% of medical device deals were handled with lawyers in New York, close to the semiconductor figure. The capital markets lateral market leans toward Hong Kong as well. Hong Kong took 4.1% of the practice's lateral moves, far above the city's share of lateral moves across all practices (an index of 535 against the whole market). A semiconductor issuer whose capital markets work touches Asia should ask where the lead partner sits, and whether the Hong Kong lawyers belong to the same deal team or to a separate office brought in later.

Two firm lists apply here, and neither ranks capital markets work for semiconductor issuers alone; no such list is published. The semiconductor list counts all of the sector's deal work, in every practice. The capital markets list counts the practice's deals across every client sector. Five names sit on both: Latham & Watkins, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Clifford Chance and Cooley. The remaining five on the semiconductor list are Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, DLA Piper, King & Wood Mallesons, Freshfields and Kirkland & Ellis. Sartori & Partners shows each firm as a rank and a band of deals advised, not an exact count; the first firm on the semiconductor list falls in the 61-100 band. Of the five on both lists, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is also in the practice's top 10 for lateral partner hires over 12 months. A semiconductor company building a panel can treat the overlap as firms with volume in both the sector and the practice, then ask every candidate for its own record on chip and electronics capital markets deals.

First, appoint capital markets counsel before the deal calendar is fixed. Sector deals rose 33.9% while capital markets lateral partner hiring held flat (+1.1%), so more chip work meets the same flow of partners between firms. Second, treat the relationship as permanent: capital markets lawyers were on 52.5% of the sector's deals, against 26.4% across all deals. Third, test sector depth directly, because the sector is 3.3% of the practice's deals and a busy partner may see few chip issuers. Fourth, map the offices: 14.9% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in Hong Kong, so an Asia-facing issuer needs that office inside the team. Fifth, start the shortlist from the five firms on both lists and widen it from there. These figures come from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.