Beyond the All-Sector Table: Mining Has Its Own Map and Its Own Leader

General counsel who compare mining law firms often start from the all-sector deal tables. Sartori & Partners data show that mining and metals work follows its own order. In the 12 months to October 2026, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin advised on 61-100 of the sector's deals, the only firm in that band, while the firms ranked second to ninth each advised on 21-40. Lawyers in Toronto worked on 17.3% of mining deals, second only to New York, and Vancouver, Perth and Sydney all make the sector's top 10 cities. This report sets the adviser table, the city map, the growth rate and the mix of work against the whole deal market and against the two other resource sectors, oil and gas and utilities, water and waste.

Fasken Martineau DuMoulin advised on more mining and metals deals than any other firm, in the 61-100 band of deals advised. Behind it the table is level. Latham & Watkins ranks second in the 21-40 band, and every firm from 2nd to 9th place shares that band, with Troutman Pepper Locke closing the top 10 in the 11-20 band. No firm sits between 21-40 and 61-100. The firm with the most deals across all sectors, Latham & Watkins, is second here, and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin does not appear in the all-sector top 10 at all.

Oil and gas has a different top. There Latham & Watkins sits in the 151-250 band and Vinson & Elkins in the 101-150 band, a pair of high-volume advisers before the counts thin. Mining has one firm with a clearly larger record at the head and a crowd of comparable firms behind it. For a company that cuts two ways. The firm with the most sector mandates offers the longest track record, and also the highest chance of acting for a counterparty, a lender or a competitor on your next deal. The eight firms in the 21-40 band are the practical answer: enough comparable volume to run a real pitch and keep a conflict-free second firm briefed.

In the Sartori & Partners deal records, lawyers in New York worked on 33.0% of mining and metals deals and lawyers in Toronto on 17.3%, ahead of London at 15.9% and Washington at 14.4%. Vancouver follows at 8.0%, Perth at 6.9% and Sydney at 5.6%. A single deal often draws on lawyers in more than one city, so each share stands on its own: it says where the work was done, not how many lawyers sit there.

The other resource sectors are drawn on another map. Lawyers in Houston worked on 48.2% of oil and gas deals, against 5.4% of mining deals. New York carries less of the work in mining too, at 33.0% against 42.0% in oil and gas and 46.3% in utilities, water and waste. Apart from London, every city in the oil and gas top 10 is American, and the utilities list adds only Frankfurt. A mining company that shortlists on New York and London alone looks past much of the sector's work. Ask each firm which offices staffed its recent mining deals, and expect a cross-border listing or financing pitch to name lawyers in the Canadian and Australian cities, not just a coordinating partner.

Mining and metals deal flow rose 25.6% over the settled 12-month windows, to 800 deals from 637. Across all sectors, deals rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216. Mining grew 2.4 times as fast as the whole deal market. Over the same windows oil and gas deal flow held flat (+5.3%) and utilities, water and waste rose 13.6%.

Mining was 1.6% of all dated deals in the 12 months, a small slice of most firms' deal work. When volume in a small sector climbs this quickly, the same few partners absorb it. Engage counsel before a transaction timetable is public, ask which other live sector deals the proposed team is carrying, and write the response times you need into the engagement letter.

Capital markets deals were 43.6% of mining and metals deals, against 25.7% across all sectors, a gap of 17.9 points. Banking and lending reached 7.2% against 3.3%, or 2.2 times the market rate. M&A also ran higher, at 28.1% against 19.3%. Disputes and investigations went the other way: 6.4% of mining deals against 25.0% of all deals. Every share is measured against all mining deals, typed or not, so the types are read one at a time and never totaled.

The practice data point the same way. Capital markets lawyers worked on 45.3% of mining deals against 26.4% market-wide, banking and finance lawyers on 8.2% against 6.3%, and projects and infrastructure lawyers on 4.5% against 2.4%. Several practices can work on one deal, so these shares overlap. For a company, the order of the shortlist follows: judge a firm first on its offerings and debt work for issuers in the sector, then on its lenders' and borrowers' side, and treat contentious work as a separate search, because a firm's mining deal record says little about its bench for disputes.

Sartori & Partners figures show a value was published on 30.2% of mining and metals deals, with a median of $382.7 million. The oil and gas median was $750 million, 2.0 times the mining figure, and utilities, water and waste reached $802.5 million. Disclosure rates were close across the three: 33.3% in oil and gas and 32.5% in utilities. A median reflects only the deals whose value was made public, so it describes the visible part of the work. Even so, it argues for staffing in proportion. A team built for a multibillion-dollar merger is not the default for a financing at the size this sector usually records, and repeatable work such as follow-on offerings is where a company can ask for a fixed or capped fee.

Start from the sector's own adviser table, not the all-sector one. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin sits alone in the 61-100 band, and the market's most active firm overall shares the 21-40 band in mining with seven others. Use that level group to create competition and to hold a conflict-free alternative. Next, map the offices. With 17.3% of mining deals handled with lawyers in Toronto and 6.9% with lawyers in Perth, ask every firm to name who in those cities will work on your matter.

Then plan for capacity: in a sector whose deals rose 25.6% while all deals rose 10.6%, the same partners are busier, so engage counsel early. Last, weight the pitch toward capital markets and lending, where mining runs at 43.6% and 7.2% of deals against 25.7% and 3.3% across all sectors, and keep dispute counsel on a separate list.