Chemical Industry Deals Outpace the Market: Book Deal Counsel Early

For a general counsel comparing law firms for chemical companies, the first fact to weigh this year is pace. Sartori & Partners data show chemical industry deals rose 33.7% year on year, from 279 to 373 in the settled 12-month windows. Over the same months, dated deals across every sector rose 10.6%. Chemical work therefore grew at 3.2 times the market's rate, and the extra volume landed on the transactional teams a chemical company calls first: capital markets, M&A and finance.

The growth is specific to chemicals, not a tide lifting every industrial sector. Over the same settled windows, the count of industrial manufacturing deals held flat (+3.2%). The oil and gas count held flat (+5.3%), and the automotive count held flat (+2.8%). Chemicals is the one sector in this group that broke away from its neighbors, and it did so from a small base: chemical deals were 0.7% of all dated deals in the 12 months to October 2026. A small sector that grows quickly concentrates new work on a short list of teams that know its products, its regulators and its buyers.

The yearly counts point the same way without standing in for a growth rate. The Sartori & Partners records hold 290 chemical deals for 2026 through October, against 318 for the whole of 2025, with two months of the year still to come. For a company planning a bond issue, a refinancing or a sale in the first half of 2027, the practical reading is simple: the partners it wants are busier than they were a year ago, and their calendars fill earlier.

The mix of chemical deals tilts toward transactions. Capital markets work appeared on 36.2% of chemical deals, against 25.7% of all deals. M&A appeared on 28.9%, against 19.3% for the market. Banking and lending is smaller but further out of line: 7.9% of chemical deals, against 3.3% across the market. Disputes and investigations run the other way, at 12.1% of chemical deals against 25.0% of all deals.

Each share counts the deals of that type among all chemical deals, including deals with no type on record, so the rows are read one at a time and never added. The practice view agrees. Capital markets lawyers worked on 37.6% of chemical deals, against 26.4% of all deals, and corporate and M&A lawyers on 33.7%, against 23.3%.

The lawyers who changed firms with a chemicals focus tell a different story: over three years, 47.5% of them practiced litigation, a breadth of risk work covered in our report on the chemical industry lawyer bench. For deal counsel, the consequence is narrower. The growth sits with securities, acquisition and lending teams, so those are the partners to secure first.

Each city figure below is the share of chemical deals, among those with a known lawyer location, that had lawyers working on them from that city. A deal staffed from New York and Frankfurt counts in both, so the shares overlap. Lawyers in New York worked on 34.6% of chemical deals, lawyers in London on 18.3% and lawyers in Washington, DC on 16.7%.

Two German cities follow. 12.1% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in Frankfurt, against 10.0% of industrial manufacturing deals. Lawyers in Munich worked on 7.5% of chemical deals, against 5.8% for manufacturing. Brussels also makes the chemical list, at 6.5%, a city absent from the manufacturing, oil and gas and automotive lists. Houston appears too, at 6.9%, far below the 48.2% it holds in oil and gas.

For a chemical company, the map is a staffing question. A firm pitched from New York may run the European side of a deal through Frankfurt, Munich or Brussels. Ask which city each named partner sits in, and whether the European team has chemical deals of its own.

Davis Polk & Wardwell and Latham & Watkins advised on the most chemical deals in the 12 months to October 2026, both in the 21-40 band. Jones Day follows alone in the 11-20 band, and seven firms from Kirkland & Ellis to Willkie Farr & Gallagher share the 6-10 band.

Bands are ranges of deals, so firms in one band are close in volume and the order inside it says little. The chemical list overlaps with the market's own ranking but does not copy it: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Baker McKenzie and Willkie Farr & Gallagher appear here without ranking among the market's top 10 deal advisers. In the Sartori & Partners deal records, 190 distinct chemical clients stood behind the year's deals, so no single firm holds the sector.

Deal size is harder to read. Only 20.8% of chemical deals disclosed a value, against 33.3% of oil and gas deals, and the median disclosed chemical deal was $750 million. The rest come without a public price tag, which makes fee benchmarks between firms thin: ask each firm for its own comparable matters rather than relying on published values.

Book early. Chemical deals grew at 3.2 times the market's rate, and the firms that handle them are carrying that extra volume now. A company with a financing, an offering or a disposal planned for 2027 should line up its capital markets, M&A and banking partners before the mandate is final, and ask each firm how many live chemical matters those partners already run.

Buy for the mix the sector actually has. Banking and lending sits at 7.9% of chemical deals, well above its market share, so a panel that covers securities and M&A but treats lending as an afterthought is out of step with the work. For European matters, confirm who in Frankfurt, Munich or Brussels will do the work. And keep the two first-band firms in view without assuming they have room: in a sector where the top band sits at 21-40 deals, a firm from the next bands down may give a busy deal more senior attention.