How Long to Make Partner in 2026: The City Matters More Than Size

How long does it take to make partner at a law firm? Sartori & Partners data show a median of 10.0 years from the first year in practice to the promotion, across 10,427 partner promotions over the last 5 years. The middle half of those new partners were named between 9.0 years and 12.0 years after they started.

That headline figure has not moved since 2022, but the numbers around it have. The average has drifted later, the city where a lawyer practices shifts the answer by years while the size of the firm hardly does, and firms fill more partner seats from outside than from inside. For a firm that hires partners, each of those facts changes how a career path, an offer or a succession plan should be built.

In every year from 2022 to 2026 the median time to partner was 10.0 years. The average tells a different story: it was 10.9 years for partners named in 2022 and 11.1 years for those named in 2025, a drift of 0.2 years. The movement sits at the slow end. The upper quartile went from 12.0 years to 13.0 years, and the share named within twelve years slipped by 2.8 points, from 77.1% to 74.3%.

The 2026 figure of 11.6 years rests on a part year of 1,812 promotions, and most announcements outside January arrive in a few batches, so we do not read it as a new step. The typical case still lands at a decade. What has grown is the group that waits well beyond it, and a firm that tells associates partnership comes in year eight or nine is describing the fast minority, not the norm.

Of the lawyers promoted over the last 5 years, 23.2% reached the title within eight years of starting practice and 75.4% within twelve. Everyone else waited longer. This is why the average of 11.1 years sits above the median: a minority of late promotions pulls it up while the typical case stays put.

The late group is not one kind of lawyer. Common paths include a period as counsel before the partnership vote, a move to another firm that restarts the review, a career break, or a practice that takes years to build a book of clients. The clock here runs from the first year in practice, so all of that time counts. For a firm, the useful reading is the window between 9.0 years and 12.0 years: that is when most decisions fall, and an associate who reaches the far end of it without a clear answer is the one most open to a call from another firm.

Time to partner is filed under the city where the lawyer practices today. Each country records the first year of practice at its own point of qualification, with shorter routes in Canada and the UK, so the Sartori & Partners promotions record sets a city only against cities of the same country, never against the overall figure or across a border. Within the US the medians span 2 years. Miami, Minneapolis and Nashville have a median of 9.0 years, while Washington, DC, San Francisco, Newark and San Diego sit at 11.0 years.

Canada and the UK show a gap at home too. Toronto has a median of 8.0 years against 9.0 years in Montreal, though the share of new partners named within eight years is close in both, 50.8% against 49.0%. London promotes at a median of 11.0 years and Manchester at 13.0 years, on 50 cases, with 72.7% of London's new partners named within twelve years against 46.0% in Manchester. Paris and Tokyo have no second city of their own country in the record, so we do not rank them.

The large US markets that share a median still differ underneath it. New York and Chicago both sit at 10.0 years, yet New York's average is 11.3 years against 10.2 years in Chicago, and only 20.3% of New York's new partners got there inside eight years, against 28.7% in Chicago. By twelve years Chicago has named 84.8% of its partners, New York 73.2%.

For a firm hiring senior associates across offices, the city is the first thing to price. An associate at the Miami median of 9.0 years would still be 2 years short of the local norm in Washington, DC, and an offer that promises a near-term vote means something different in each. Across borders the year counts do not line up at all, so a Toronto associate's years in practice cannot be read against a London associate's.

Set against that city spread, the size of the firm does little to the typical case. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers, 400-999 lawyers, 150-399 lawyers and under 150 lawyers all show a median of 10.0 years. Their averages run from 10.9 years to 11.2 years, a gap of 0.3 years.

Size shows only in the tails. Firms of 150-399 lawyers named 27.1% of their new partners inside eight years, against 21.8% at firms of 1,000+ lawyers, a gap of 5.3 points. Firms under 150 lawyers also have a quick start (24.9%) but share the longest slow tail with firms of 1,000+ lawyers: both put their upper quartile at 13.0 years. Practice area moves the median more than size does: corporate and private equity partners reach the title at a median of 9.0 years, which the guide on time to partner by practice takes further.

A smaller firm recruiting against a large one therefore cannot sell a shorter track as a rule. It can point to a better chance of an early promotion for a strong associate, which is a narrower and more honest claim, and one a candidate can test by asking how recent partners in the group were promoted.

Promotion is only one door into a partnership. In the 12 months to May 2026, the last complete month of promotions, Sartori & Partners recorded 2,955 promotions to partner and 3,749 lateral partner hires, so firms brought in 1.3 times as many partners from outside as they made from within. Put the other way, firms promoted 0.79 lawyers for each lateral partner they hired. The outside door is also busier than a year ago: lateral partner hiring rose 8.4%, from 3,558 to 3,858 in the settled 12-month windows.

The balance follows the city again. Toronto, the faster of the two Canadian tracks, promoted 2.09 lawyers for each lateral partner it hired, and Atlanta and Charlotte came out close to one for one, at 0.90 and 0.84. San Francisco, among the slowest US tracks, sits near the other end with 0.55, and Los Angeles lower still at 0.49. The link is loose: Miami has one of the quickest US tracks, at a median of 9.0 years, yet still hires laterally far more than it promotes, at 0.60.

Where the ratio sits well below one, the partnership grows mainly by hiring, and senior associates in that market can read the numbers as well as anyone. A firm in such a market that wants to keep its own bench has to show that the internal route still produces partners, or expect its strongest senior associates to take the lateral route themselves.

Plan careers around a decade and budget for longer. The median of 10.0 years is stable, but the average of 11.1 years and the longer slow tail mean a growing share of associates will still be waiting after twelve years, and some of them will move rather than wait.

Price the city before the firm. A lateral candidate's seniority only makes sense against the local track, which within the US alone runs from 9.0 years to 11.0 years and cannot be carried across a border, since each country starts the clock at its own point, while firm size leaves the median at 10.0 years. Then treat the lateral market as the larger door it is: with 3,749 partners hired against 2,955 promoted, Sartori & Partners figures show that a partnership growing faster than its peers is usually buying, and the associates watching it know that too.