Lateral Partner Hirers vs Volume Hirers in 2026: Mix Decides the List

The law firms hiring the most lateral partners 2026 has seen are not simply the busiest hirers with a smaller number attached. Sartori & Partners data show partners made up 27.7% of the 14,091 lateral moves in the 12 months to October 2026, and ranking firms by partner hires instead of all hires changes two of the ten names. Eight firms appear on both lists. The two that drop out take a clearly smaller share of partners than the market does; the two that come in take a clearly larger one. For a firm leader planning partner recruitment, the competitor set is the second list, not the first.

Set side by side, the two rankings share eight names, and the four firms at the head of the partner list all sit in the all-level top six. Scale still counts: a firm that hires laterally in large numbers tends to hire partners in large numbers too. The ten firms on the partner list together accounted for 13.5% of partner moves, against 12.9% of all moves for the all-level top 10, so partner hiring is only slightly more concentrated than hiring as a whole. Both rankings count individual hires: lawyers who arrived as one team in the same quarter are in the market totals but not in a firm's rank.

Two practical points follow. A partner candidate courted by one of the eight is likely to hear from several of them, so a search that reaches the market late meets an auction already under way. And with the partner top 10 holding 13.5% of partner moves among 1,291 firms that hired laterally, the great majority of partner supply moves through firms ranked further down, which is where a patient search finds candidates no one else has called.

Latham & Watkins ranks 2nd among all lateral hirers, in the 151-250 band, yet partners are about 15% of its hires against 27.7% across the market. On partner hires alone it sits in the 11-25 group. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, 10th overall, shows the same pattern at a smaller scale: partners about 20% of hires and a partner rank in the 26-50 group.

Neither firm is short of partner hires in absolute terms. Both sit in the 21-40 band for lateral partners, the same band as Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which holds 9th place on the partner list. What keeps them off it is the denominator: lateral partners are a thin slice of a large associate intake, with associates about 80% of hires at the first firm and 65% at the second.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, 9th among all hirers, shows where the line falls. Its partner share, about 30%, is in line with the market's, and its partner hires, in the same 21-40 band, are enough to hold 10th place on the partner list. A volume hirer with a market-rate mix keeps its place on both lists; only a clear lean toward associates pushes it off. For a firm competing with Latham & Watkins or Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for talent, the pressure is mostly at associate and counsel level; at partner level they bid less often than their overall rank suggests.

Two firms take the open places. Sidley Austin is 7th on the partner list while it ranks in the 11-25 group of all-level hirers. Willkie Farr & Gallagher is 9th, coming in from the 26-50 group. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, partners are about 40% of hires at Sidley Austin and 45% at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, against 27.7% market-wide.

Sidley Austin hires in the 101-150 band, the same band as the last firm on the all-level list (101-150), so it misses that list at the margin; Willkie Farr & Gallagher, in the 61-100 band, hires clearly fewer lawyers in total, and its partner share does the work that volume does for the busiest hirers. All five firms discussed here are in the 1,000+ lawyers class, which is why size alone cannot explain the swap.

The tilt toward partners has sharpened lately. Over 3 years, partners were about 30% of hires at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and 35% at Sidley Austin, while the market's own partner share moved only from 26.9% over 3 years to 27.7% in the latest 12 months. In the promotion year to May 2026 both promoted partners in the 11-20 band, beneath their lateral partner bands, so they add partners by hiring more than by promotion. For a firm leader, these are the less obvious rivals: they do not show on a volume ranking, yet they bid for partners more often than their size in the market suggests.

Lateral partner moves rose 8.4%, from 3,558 to 3,858, comparing the settled 12-month windows that end in September 2026 and September 2025. All lateral moves rose 9.0% over the same windows, from 13,128 to 14,305. Partner demand grew at about the market's pace rather than ahead of it.

Sartori & Partners records 3,540 lateral partner moves in 2026 so far, against 3,594 in the whole of 2025. With partner and total hiring rising together, the partner list was not reshaped by a sudden jump in partner demand. It reflects choices about mix: the two firms that come in spend a large part of their lateral budget on partners, and the two volume hirers that drop out spend theirs mostly on associates. Expect the two lists to keep diverging for as long as those choices hold.

Benchmark your partner recruiting against the partner list, not the volume list. Two of the ten volume names bid for partners less often than their overall rank implies, and two firms outside the volume top 10 bid more. A firm whose own hires run near the market's 27.7% partner share is buying partners at the market rate; a firm at about 40% or more is competing the way the partner-led group does, and should expect the same rivals at every shortlist.

When a partner candidate is in play, assume the eight firms on both lists are in the conversation and ask early which of the partner-led firms has made contact. Their practice weights tell you where they will appear: Sidley Austin took about 40% of its hires in banking and finance, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher about 20% in restructuring. If your target practices match, plan for a longer process and a firmer offer. Read the volume ranking as a measure of associate demand and the partner ranking as the map of who will bid against you at partner level.