Lateral Hiring 2026 Year to Date: Up 10.1%, Built From April

Anyone tracking lateral hiring 2026 year to date sees a clean headline. Sartori & Partners data show 11,628 lateral moves from January to September 2026, against 10,560 in the same months of 2025: the count rose 10.1%. The headline hides the shape. The gain was absent in the first quarter, built from April and reached its widest point at the end of August. For a firm planning partner and associate hires into 2027, that timing says more than the total.

The January count held flat (+2.0%) on January 2025, and the running total through February held flat (+2.8%). By the end of March the count stood at 4,041 against 3,867, so the year to date held flat (+4.5%). In the Sartori & Partners lateral database a change this small reads as flat, because older years miss lawyers who have since left private practice, which lifts recent years by a few points.

The comparison base explains much of it. The first quarter was the strongest stretch of 2025: by the end of March 2025 the year to date was up 17.0% on the same months of 2024. A level first quarter in 2026 matched an unusually heavy one. For a hiring partner, the lesson is that a flat early reading against a strong prior year said little about the months that followed. Firms that read March as a stalled market and held their searches started behind the spring build.

April was the turn. Lateral moves in April 2026 rose 16.8% on April 2025, and the year-to-date gain rose to 7.1%, out of the flat band. It kept climbing: up 7.9% by May, 9.9% by June, 11.2% by July and 13.2% by August. June on its own rose 20.8% on June 2025.

The base helped here too, in the other direction. By July 2025 the year to date rose 5.0% on 2024, so the middle months of 2026 were measured against a soft stretch. A soft base does not account for the volume, though. From April to August 2026 the market added 6,250 lateral moves, against 5,220 in the same five months of 2025.

Set the two years side by side on the chart and the pattern is plain: 2025 front-loaded its growth, 2026 back-loaded it. Firms that opened searches in the spring met a market already running ahead of 2025, with more lawyers changing firms each month than a year earlier.

September is the one month of 2026 that came in below its 2025 match. It counted 1,337 moves against 1,473 in September 2025, so the month fell 9.2%. That pulled the year-to-date gain back from 13.2% at the end of August to 10.1% at the end of September. One month against a heavy base does not reverse a five-month build.

The wider measure points the same way. Across the settled 12 months, which end in September, lateral moves rose 9.0%, from 13,128 to 14,305. Last year at this point there was no growth to speak of: the 2025 count to October held flat (+3.4%) on the same months of 2024. A hiring plan sized on 2025 volumes therefore underestimates how many other firms are working the same candidate list this year.

The partner count did not wait for April. Through March, partners made 1,217 lateral moves against 1,109 a year earlier, so they supplied 108 of the 174 extra moves of the first quarter. While the whole market was level, the partner market was already moving.

From April the balance shifted below partner level. By the end of August partners accounted for 274 of the 1,204 extra moves, so associates and counsel carried the spring and summer build. Through September, partners were 27.8% of the 2026 year to date and 28.1% of the 2025 one. Sartori & Partners data show that settled 12-month partner moves rose 8.4%, in line with the whole market. Partner candidates were contested from January; associate and counsel searches opened in the spring faced the fullest field.

October 2026 is the newest month and reads low, because start dates are confirmed with a delay. It shows 926 moves so far against 1,140 in October 2025, a gap that will narrow as start dates come in. With that caution, the running count through October is 12,554 against 11,700, and partner moves 3,540 against 3,230. No percentage is published on those counts yet. The October mix also leans to partners, 32.8% of moves so far against 22.6% a year earlier, so the partner gap through October deserves the same caution.

The full-year picture is close. The 2026 count stands at 12,554, which is 683 moves short of the full 2025 total of 13,237; November and December 2025 together added 1,537. Dated deals moved the same way through September, 36,603 in 2026 against 33,292 in 2025, so the extra hiring had extra work behind it.

Read the year from April, not January. The level first quarter came against a strong 2025 start, and the gain of 10.1% through September was built in the spring and summer. A firm that judges the 2027 market on its first-quarter count risks the same misreading.

Plan for more competition per search. The market added 1,068 more lateral moves from January to September than in the same months of 2025, and each of those moves was a hire some other firm could also have made. Associate and counsel searches carry most of that extra pressure; partner searches have carried it since January, at a steady share of about 27.8% of all moves.

Use the through-September figure as the planning number. Sartori & Partners data will settle October in the next edition, and that will show whether September was a pause or a turn. Until then, the evidence is a market running ahead of 2025, with its momentum built after the first quarter.