Professional Services Firms in 2026: M&A-Heavy and Rarely Priced

Executives who look for law firms for professional services firms are, above all, buying transaction work. Sartori & Partners data show 549 deals for accounting, consulting, staffing and other professional services clients in the 12 months to October 2026, spread across 334 distinct clients. Set against the whole market, two deal types stand out: M&A runs at 2.1 times its share of all deals, and private equity at 2.1 times. Few of these deals carry a public price, and the advisers who handle them sit close together in volume rather than behind one dominant name.

The flow itself did not move much. The sector's deal count held flat (+7.6%) year on year, 541 in the settled 12 months against 503 the year before, while all deals rose 10.6%. The story here is the mix of work, not its volume, and the mix decides who belongs on the panel.

M&A is 40.6% of professional services deals, against 19.3% of every deal recorded. Private equity follows the same pattern from a smaller base: 7.8% of the sector's deals against 3.7% market-wide. The two types that dominate the wider market run the other way. Capital markets work is 17.7% of professional services deals but 25.7% overall, and disputes and investigations are 16.9% here against 25.0% across all sectors.

Construction and engineering, a sector of similar deal count, shows how unusual the private equity figure is. Its M&A share is close, at 39.2%, but private equity is 4.8% of its deals against 7.8% for professional services. A private equity deal puts a financial sponsor at the table, with its own terms on management equity, rollover and exit. For a professional services firm, the core of the panel is a corporate team that runs M&A and sponsor transactions as routine work, whether the firm is buying, selling or taking investment.

The practice view points the same way. Corporate and M&A lawyers worked on 49.2% of professional services deals, against 23.3% of all deals, 2.1 times the market rate. Capital markets lawyers appear on 18.6% of the sector's deals, below their 26.4% market share. Litigation and disputes lawyers run above the market at 6.9% against 3.7%, and banking and finance sits at 5.1% here and 6.3% overall.

Lawyers who describe the sector as their own focus tell a different story. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, 68.2% of the lawyers with a professional services focus who changed firms in the past 12 months practice litigation and disputes, an index of 171 against the market's practice mix, far above parity. Partner moves in that group rose 71.4%, to 60 from 35. A lawyer marketed as a professional services specialist is more often a litigator than a deal lawyer, so judge transaction counsel on its M&A and private equity record, not on the sector label.

In Sartori & Partners records, only 5.5% of professional services deals disclosed a value. Infrastructure, with 585 deals against 549 here, disclosed a value on 39.3% of them. Financial sponsor deals disclosed on 19.1% and construction and engineering deals on 13.6%. Where a professional services value was published, the median was 882 million US dollars, but that figure rests on the small set of deals that disclosed and says more about which deals get announced with a price than about a typical deal.

The practical result is that a professional services firm cannot benchmark price, structure or terms from public sources. That knowledge sits with the advisers who close the sector's deals. Before a mandate, ask each candidate how many professional services transactions it closed in the past 12 months, on which side, and with what kind of counterparty.

Kirkland & Ellis heads the adviser list for professional services clients, in the 11-20 band of sector deals. The eight firms below it, down to DLA Piper, sit in the same band, and Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel completes the top 10 in the 6-10 band. Financial sponsor work is far more concentrated: Kirkland & Ellis sits in the 251-400 band there, one band above Latham & Watkins at 151-250.

With no adviser far ahead, a professional services firm is not tied to one name. It can choose on team fit, sector record and fees, and keep a second corporate firm on the panel for the moment a conflict rules out the first, which happens more often when a small group of firms handles a sector's transactions.

Lawyers in New York worked on 32.8% of professional services deals, and lawyers in London on 20.8%. For financial sponsor deals the same two cities reach 43.2% and 29.5%. Washington, DC follows at 13.3% and Chicago at 12.0%, with Dallas, Boston, Philadelphia and Miami also on the list.

The work is spread wider than in sponsor deals. A panel firm needs strength in New York and London, but also offices in the US cities where the sector's deals are handled, such as Chicago, Dallas and Boston.

Build the panel around transactions. M&A is 40.6% of the sector's deals, so the lead firm should be a corporate team with a steady record of professional services M&A and private equity work, able to handle sponsor terms from the first call. Since only 5.5% of the sector's deals disclose a value, insist on hearing that record in detail: deal count, side, counterparty type. Keep a second firm for disputes and investigations, which are 16.9% of the sector's deals, and for capital markets work when it arises. Check office coverage beyond New York and London. And treat the professional services specialist label with care: among lawyers who carry it and changed firms, litigation dominates.