Where Asset Managers Find In-House Lawyers: A Transatlantic Bench

An asset manager hiring an asset management in-house lawyer is recruiting from a bench that sits on both sides of the Atlantic, not mainly in New York. Sartori & Partners data show that of the 803 lateral moves made by lawyers with an asset management and funds focus in the 12 months to October 2026, London took 19.6% and Paris 5.4%. Measured against each city's share of all lateral moves, London over-indexes at 212 and Paris at 293, both above New York at 168. Funds lawyers carry an index of 1,248 on the same basis. More of these lawyers changed firms this year even as the sector's deal count stood still, and those movers took seats at other law firms. A general counsel competes with lateral offers, not with an empty market, and the search has to reach lawyers in the seats they already hold.

New York is still the largest single destination for these lawyers. It took 24.9% of the moves, 200 in all, against 157 for London. Concentration tells a different story from size. London's share of asset management moves is 2.1 times its share of all lateral moves, and Paris's is 3.0 times; for New York the figure is 1.7 times. Paris drew 43 of these moves, a modest count that still puts it above Chicago, Washington, DC and Boston in the list below.

Neighboring sectors put the pattern in context. Among lawyers with a financial sponsors focus, Paris over-indexes at 244 and London at 187; among lawyers focused on banks and financial institutions, London stands at 161. Asset management sits above both on each city. The consequence for a fund manager is direct: a shortlist drawn only from New York misses the two cities where this bench is densest relative to the market. A manager with a European platform should run London and Paris as primary search markets, not as a fallback when New York runs dry.

The practice mix is narrower than the sector's name suggests. Funds and investment management lawyers appear in 52.6% of moves by asset-management-focused lawyers, against 4.2% of all lateral moves. A lawyer can carry two practices, so these shares overlap and are read one at a time, never added. Private equity follows with an index of 349, tax with 173 and banking and finance with 166. Litigation sits at the other end, at 12: disputes lawyers barely figure in this flow.

The mix is stable over a longer window. Over 36 months, funds lawyers appeared in 50.7% of the 2,207 moves by these lawyers. For an in-house role this sets the sourcing order. A general counsel who needs fund formation, product and regulatory work will find most candidates in funds groups. For a role weighted toward transactions, private equity and corporate lawyers with fund clients form the second ring. A litigator with an asset management background is a rare profile in this flow, and that search should be planned as a longer one.

The sector's deal work and its movers sit in different places, and the two measures differ: the first counts deals, the second lateral moves. In the 12 months, 41.3% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in New York and 27.0% with lawyers in Washington, DC. That is where the work is done; one deal can count in several cities, so these shares overlap and add to more than the whole. Yet Washington drew only 4.2% of moves by asset-management-focused lawyers, an index of 75 against the market. Lawyers in London worked on 18.1% of asset management deals, against 29.5% of financial sponsor deals, while London over-indexes among the movers.

Paris shows the reverse pattern on a smaller scale. Lawyers there worked on 4.0% of asset management deals and 8.8% of sponsor deals, yet among these movers the city carries a higher index than London or New York. For a hiring company, the lesson is that a city where much of the work is done is not automatically a city where funds lawyers change seats. Washington handles a large part of the sector's deals, but fewer of these moves land there than the city's share of all moves would predict. London combines a sizable share of the work with movement; Paris offers movement above all.

The two sides of the sector moved apart. Deals for asset management and fund clients numbered 2,349 in the 12 months to September 2026 against 2,335 a year earlier, and the count held flat (+0.6%). Moves by lawyers with this focus numbered 838 against 759; that count rose 10.4%, in step with all lateral moves, where the count rose 9.0%, from 13,128 to 14,305. At partner level the count held flat (+10.9%), 397 against 358, so the senior seats a company most often fills did not open up faster.

A rising count of moves does not mean candidates are coming free for companies; it means more of these lawyers are taking seats at other firms. Other figures show how settled these lawyers are. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, only 15.5% of their moves involved a change of city, against 20.5% across all lateral moves. London took in 157 of these lawyers and saw 113 leave a firm there, a ratio of 1.4 against 1.2 for all lateral moves in the city. Nor is London's draw a one-year effect: over 36 months it took 470 of these moves, against 495 for New York. An employer cannot count on those movers turning to companies. The search has to go to lawyers in the city where they already work.

Moves from law firms into companies follow another map. Across all sectors, between May and October 2026, companies hired 953 lawyers out of firms, 13.1 for every hundred lateral moves in the same months. London lawyers made 8.2% of those moves and New York lawyers 16.1%. Over 12 months, London's share of moves by asset-management-focused lawyers is 19.6%, or 2.4 times its share of moves into companies. The windows differ and the company figures cover every sector, but the gap is wide: London weighs far more in funds moves than in moves from firms into companies.

Seniority adds a second gap. Partners made 50.2% of moves by these lawyers, against 27.7% of all lateral moves and 11.0% of moves into companies, where associates were 76.7%. Over 36 months, 77.4% of these lawyers left firms of 1,000+ lawyers; among lawyers who joined companies, 59.3% came from firms of that size. An asset manager hiring in London or Paris is therefore asking for a move that London lawyers make less often than their weight in funds moves would suggest, usually out of a large firm. Title, scope and pay have to be set against a large-firm package, not a general in-house band.

First, treat London and Paris as primary markets. With indexes of 212 and 293 against 168 for New York, a search confined to New York leaves out the densest part of the bench. Second, source from funds groups before anything else, then from private equity and corporate teams with fund clients. Third, plan for a direct approach and a realistic timeline: with rising moves going to other firms and few lawyers changing city, few candidates will surface unprompted, and relocation is a hard sell, so hire in the city where the lawyer lives. Fourth, price the offer against the firms in the list above, since 77.1% of these lawyers' moves over 12 months went to firms of 1,000+ lawyers. Sartori & Partners figures point to one conclusion: the asset management bench is found by going to it, not by waiting for it.