Fund Counsel for Sponsors in 2026: The Work Leans on London

A general counsel at a financial sponsor who looks for fund formation lawyers for private equity firms should first ask where that work gets done. Sartori & Partners data show 1,221 deals with funds lawyers on them in the 12 months to October 2026, and the practice rests on two client sectors: asset managers and funds were the client on 64.3% of those deals, financial sponsors on 29.3%. The two sectors do not lean on the same offices. 29.5% of financial sponsor deals were handled with lawyers in London, against 18.1% of asset manager deals. For a sponsor choosing fund counsel, that gap bears on which office should lead the team, not only on which firm gets the mandate.

Each deal on record carries the offices of the lawyers named on it, and a deal counts once in every city that worked on it, so the city shares overlap and are never added. For financial sponsors, 29.5% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in London. For asset managers and funds the figure is 18.1%, a gap of 11.4 points. London appears on sponsor deals 1.6 times as often as on asset manager deals, in the 12 months to October 2026.

New York reads almost the same for both sectors: 43.2% of sponsor deals against 41.3% of asset manager deals. Washington, DC tips the other way, at 24.0% for sponsors and 27.0% for asset managers. Sponsor deals also pull in more continental European offices, with Paris on 8.8% of them against 4.0%, and Frankfurt on 8.2% against 4.0%. Chicago shows a gap as well, 16.7% against 7.2%, so sponsor deals in general draw lawyers from more offices; even so, London's gap of 11.4 points is wider than Chicago's 9.5 points.

These shares cover every deal in each sector, not only the ones with funds lawyers on them, and no city split is published for funds work for sponsors alone. They still say where a sponsor's legal work tends to sit. The London bench also changes hands: among lawyers focused on sponsor work who moved firms in 12 months, 17.3% joined a firm in London. A sponsor's fund counsel should be able to put London partners on the same matter as its New York team, and a general counsel should ask who in London would sit on the fund and how long that partner has been with the firm.

The overlap between the practice and the sector reads differently from each side. Sartori & Partners count 358 deals in 12 months that carried both funds lawyers and a financial sponsor client. From the practice side, those deals are 29.3% of funds work, against 64.3% for asset managers and funds. From the sector side, funds lawyers were on 10.8% of sponsor deals, while they were on 33.6% of asset manager deals. A sponsor's deal flow reaches well past its funds: private equity lawyers were on 32.8% of sponsor deals and corporate and M&A lawyers on 9.1%.

The deal types tell the same story. Fund formation was the type on 10.4% of sponsor deals and on 39.1% of funds practice deals, against 1.3% of all dated deals. For a sponsor, then, choosing fund counsel and choosing deal counsel are separate decisions. Judge the funds team on its fund formation record, not on the firm's overall sponsor volume, which counts every kind of sponsor deal, not only fund work.

Where a value is disclosed, the funds practice's median deal is $1,100 million, and 25.1% of its deals disclose one. The median for financial sponsors is $700 million, on 19.1% of the sector's deals, and for asset managers and funds $750 million, on 14.8%. The sector medians cover every deal in each sector, including the many without funds lawyers, so the sponsor figure is not a median for funds work done for sponsors; no such figure is published. On the figures that are published, the practice median is 1.6 times the sponsor median.

Size shapes staffing. A larger vehicle means more investors to deal with, more jurisdictions and more partner hours, and a sponsor with European investors will want the London side of the team priced in from the start. Ask each firm for a fee proposal built on the named partners in both offices rather than a blended rate.

Financial sponsor deals rose 8.9% year on year, from 3,056 to 3,329 in the settled 12-month windows ending September 2026. Funds practice deals held flat (+2.8%), from 1,191 to 1,224. The whole deal record rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216. These are separate readings: the sponsor figure covers all sponsor deals, the funds figure covers all of the practice's client sectors, and no trend is published for funds work for sponsors alone. Lateral partner moves recorded under the funds practice rose 29.7% over the same windows, from 165 to 214.

A sponsor sector that is doing more deals while the funds practice holds steady can mean more sponsors calling on the same fund partners for related work. Book the fund team before the first close is scheduled, and ask each firm how many live sponsor mandates its named partners already carry.

Two firm lists apply here, and neither is a list of funds work for sponsors. The sponsor list counts every deal for financial sponsors, of any kind; the funds list counts every funds practice deal, for all client sectors. Kirkland & Ellis ranks first on both: alone in the 251-400 band on the sponsor list, and sharing the 101-150 band with Dechert on the funds list.

Counted name by name, five firms are on both lists: Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Ropes & Gray, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Sidley Austin. The sponsor list also names Jones Day, Goodwin Procter, McDermott Will & Schulte, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The funds list also names Dechert, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, Loyens & Loeff and K & L Gates.

For a sponsor's fund mandate, the five firms on both lists are the natural starting point, because they carry volume both with sponsors and in funds work. The other names on each list deserve a direct question rather than an assumption: ask how much of the funds team's work is for sponsors, and whether its London office handled any of it. With Kirkland & Ellis alone in the top band for sponsors, conflicts with other sponsors raising at the same time are a question for the first meeting.

First, plan the London side of the fund team before choosing the firm: 29.5% of sponsor deals were handled with lawyers in London, against 18.1% of asset manager deals, so test a firm's London fund partners as closely as its New York ones. Second, keep the fund decision apart from the deal decision; funds lawyers were on 10.8% of sponsor deals, and the firm's sponsor ranking says little about its fund bench. Third, start the short list from the five firms on both lists and test the rest on fund formation alone. Fourth, book early: sponsor deal volume rose 8.9% while funds practice volume held flat (+2.8%), so the same partners face more sponsor demand. Sartori & Partners build the record from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly.