How Manufacturers Use Counsel: M&A at 2.1 Times the Market's Share

General counsel who shortlist law firms for manufacturing companies are buying a different product from most corporate clients. Sartori & Partners data show 985 deals for industrial manufacturing clients in the 12 months to October 2026, 2.0% of every deal recorded across all sectors. The size is ordinary; the mix is not. Manufacturers buy acquisitions and disposals at 2.1 times the market's rate, staff them with corporate lawyers, and have more of their deals handled with lawyers in Frankfurt and Munich than almost any other sector. The adviser list is flat: the ten most active firms all sit within two deal bands of each other.

M&A is 40.0% of industrial manufacturing deals. Across all deals the same type is 19.3%, so manufacturers buy it at 2.1 times the market's rate. Among the sectors with more deals than manufacturing, none carries an M&A share this high. Technology and software, the largest corporate client group, books M&A on 30.0% of its deals, 10.0 points below manufacturing. Automotive sits at 24.0% and chemicals at 28.9%.

The weight comes out of disputes, not capital markets. Capital markets work is 28.4% of manufacturing deals, close to the market's 25.7%. Disputes and investigations fall to 11.1%, against 25.0% across all deals. Banking and lending, at 5.3%, runs a little above the market's 3.3%. For a manufacturer, the firm that matters most is the one that can run a carve-out or a bolt-on acquisition from signing to closing; litigation counsel is a separate, smaller purchase.

The practice behind each deal confirms the deal mix. Corporate and M&A lawyers appear on 45.3% of manufacturing deals, 1.9 times their 23.3% share of all deals. Technology and software runs slightly higher, at 47.8%, but M&A is a smaller part of its deal mix, as the section above shows. Automotive corporate lawyers appear on 28.0% of that sector's deals and chemicals corporate lawyers on 33.7%.

Other practices take smaller roles. Capital markets lawyers appear on 28.7% of manufacturing deals, close to their 26.4% across the market, banking and finance lawyers on 7.8% against 6.3%, and intellectual property lawyers on 4.8%, well under the 11.1% they reach across the market. Product liability lawyers appear on 3.1%, against 2.1% of all deals. When you interview a firm, ask to meet the corporate partner who will run your next acquisition, not the relationship partner, because that is where the hours go.

Manufacturing work leans on German offices more than most sectors do. In the Sartori & Partners deal records, lawyers in New York worked on 31.9% of manufacturing deals and lawyers in London on 16.5%. Washington, DC follows at 14.9% and Chicago at 10.9%, with Frankfurt just behind at 10.0%. Munich, at 5.8%, and Hamburg, at 4.7%, also make the sector's top 10 cities; in technology and software, no German city does. One deal can draw lawyers from several cities, so these shares overlap and add to more than the whole.

Manufacturing is not the most German sector. Lawyers in Frankfurt worked on 15.0% of automotive deals and lawyers in Munich on 9.3%. Chemicals also runs higher, at 12.1% for Frankfurt and 7.5% for Munich. The three sectors form one European cluster. A manufacturer buying or selling a German or Central European business should test a firm's Frankfurt and Munich bench as hard as its New York one, because the local team will carry the employee, works council and merger control steps.

Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis and Davis Polk & Wardwell head the manufacturing list, each in the 21-40 band. The first seven firms all sit in that band, and Linklaters, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath and White & Case follow at 11-20. Automotive has a clear first place, with Latham & Watkins at 41-60 deals; manufacturing has no such outlier.

The list mixes the market's largest deal firms with European and Midwest names. Across all deals, Latham & Watkins ranks first at 1,200+ deals, and the fourth-ranked firm sits at 701-1200. Here, CMS, Freshfields and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath enter the top 10. Work is spread across 487 distinct clients, about 2.0 deals each. With no dominant adviser, a manufacturer has real price tension: the gap in sector experience between the first and tenth firm is one band, not an order of magnitude.

Manufacturing deal volume held flat (+3.2%) year on year, with 967 deals in the 12 months to September 2026 against 937 a year earlier. All deals rose 10.6% over the same windows, and chemicals rose 33.7%. Automotive held flat (+2.8%), so the two closest peers in the industrial cluster move together.

Values are disclosed on 18.9% of manufacturing deals, with a median of $750 million where they are. Technology and software discloses on 25.5% of deals at a median of $250 million, and automotive on 16.4% at $500 million. Manufacturing deals that are priced in public are larger than most, which puts the busiest corporate partners under pressure when several clients sign in the same quarter.

The lateral bench is small. Lawyers with a manufacturing focus made 68 moves between firms over 3 years, and 64.7% of them carried a litigation practice. For a manufacturer, the movers to watch are trial lawyers, so a product liability panel needs more upkeep than the deal panel.

Build the panel around M&A. With acquisitions at 40.0% of manufacturing deals, the core firm should show a corporate team that closes cross-border deals, not a generic full-service pitch. Check the German offices by name: lawyers in Frankfurt worked on 10.0% of the sector's deals, so a weak local bench will show up in the timetable. Use the flat ranking to your advantage; any of the ten most active firms has comparable sector volume, so fee and staffing commitments can decide the mandate. Keep litigation and product liability on a separate list, sourced from trial firms, because the deal firms book comparatively little of that work for manufacturers.