Washington Tops Education Deals at Just 16.7%: Buy Close to Home

A school system, college or university choosing education law firms has more room to buy near home than a buyer in almost any other sector. Sartori & Partners data show 299 education deals in the 12 months to October 2026, and no single city carries the work: 16.7% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in Washington, the busiest city. That is the lowest top-city share of any industry we track. New York follows at 14.4% and Raleigh at 10.9%. The adviser list is spread in the same way: one firm sits in a band of its own and the rest of the top 10 fall into small bands. This report sets out where the work is done, what kind of work it is, who does it, and what that means for the general counsel deciding where the next mandate goes.

Lawyers in Washington worked on 16.7% of education deals with a known lawyer location, more than any other city and still under a fifth of them. Set that against nonprofits, another sector of mission-driven institutions: lawyers in Washington worked on 29.7% of nonprofit deals and lawyers in New York on 21.3%. In government and public sector deals the first city is New York, at 24.9%, and the same holds for healthcare providers and payors, at 27.3%.

The gap from the first city to the third measures how flat the map is. In education it is 5.8 points; among nonprofits, from Washington to Chicago, it is 21.3 points. A deal can count in more than one city, so these shares overlap and are never added together. The consequence for an education buyer is practical: experience with the sector's matters is not held in one or two legal capitals, so a firm close to the institution can bring a real record of comparable work.

Raleigh lawyers worked on 10.9% of education deals, a share resting on 28 deals. In the Sartori & Partners deal records Raleigh shows up in the city list of no other industry. The third city for nonprofits is Chicago, at 8.4%, and the third for government and public sector deals is London, at 16.0%. No other city reached the publication threshold for education, so the list stops at three and should not be read as a full ranking of where the sector's lawyers sit.

Public schools and universities are spread across every state, and much of their legal work follows them: employment claims, student matters, state funding and procurement rules. That is why a state capital can sit on the list ahead of the large financial centers. A buyer outside New York or Washington does not have to travel there to find advisers who handle this work month after month.

Disputes and investigations were 61.5% of education deals, over three fifths, against 25.0% of all deals, which puts the type at 2.5 times its market weight. Transactions are thin by comparison. Capital markets work, the largest type across the market at 25.7%, was 9.7% of education deals, and M&A was 9.0% against 19.3% market-wide. Nonprofits lean harder still toward disputes, at 70.5%, a pattern our companion report on nonprofit advisers covers in full.

Some deals carry no type, so the three shares shown are not a split of the sector's work. For a university or school system, the outside counsel budget is first a litigation budget, and a firm's court record matters more than its deal tables when the panel is drawn up.

Sorting the same deals by practice shows which lawyers do the work. Public Law & Government lawyers were credited on 21.1% of education deals, against 1.8% of all deals, a gap of 19.3 points. Intellectual Property comes first by share, at 27.8% against 11.1% across the market. Deal records include court and trademark-office matters, which are many in intellectual property, so that share reflects patent and brand cases on record rather than fees.

The transaction practices run below their market weight: Capital Markets lawyers were on 11.4% of education deals against 26.4% of all deals, and Corporate & M&A lawyers on 11.0% against 23.3%. One deal can involve several practices, so the shares overlap. When an institution tests a firm, it should ask for the public law and intellectual property partners by name, since those two benches carry the sector's distinctive work.

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein worked on 21-40 education deals in the 12 months, the only firm in that band. FBT Gibbons and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati follow in the 6-10 band, and the other seven firms on the list each sit in the 3-5 band. Ranks inside one band do not separate the firms.

Other sectors look different at the top. In healthcare providers and payors the first firm sits in the 101-150 band, and in nonprofit deals the first sits in 11-20 with nine firms close behind. Two firms from the market-wide top 10 of deal advisers, Kirkland & Ellis and Jones Day, appear here only in the 3-5 band. The firm with the most education deals is not in that market-wide top 10 at all. For a school or university this means the names that dominate other sectors are not the default choice here, and the field below the first firm is wide enough to run a real competition. Lateral hiring tells a separate story, set out in our companion report on the education bench: among lawyers with an education focus who changed firms, 38.0% joined firms of 150-399 lawyers.

The education deal count rose 16.5%, from 255 to 297 in the settled 12-month window. Over the same months the market-wide count rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216. The nearby sectors held still: the nonprofit count held flat (+9.4%) and the government and public sector count held flat (+5.1%). Values are rarely public in this sector: they were disclosed on 6.0% of education deals, against 22.3% of government and public sector deals, too few to publish a median. Rising demand against a spread-out adviser base favors the buyer, who can compare several firms of similar weight on price and staffing.

Start the search near the institution. With only 16.7% of education deals handled with lawyers in the busiest city, there is no single center a buyer has to go through, and a city such as Raleigh carries a real share of the work. Build the panel around disputes, which were 61.5% of the sector's deals, and test public law depth next: Sartori & Partners figures put Public Law & Government lawyers on 21.1% of education deals. Keep intellectual property as a named lot for patent and brand matters. Treat the firm list as a field rather than a hierarchy: past the first firm, the advisers sit in small bands, so a tender can price several of them against each other. Buy capital markets and M&A deal by deal, since they are a small part of what the sector asks of outside counsel.