Law Firm Lateral Hiring 2026: Up 9.0%, Well Clear of the 2023 Dip

Measured against its own five-year record, law firm lateral hiring 2026 is running higher than in any full calendar year we have tracked. Sartori & Partners data show 14,305 lateral moves in the settled 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026, against 13,128 in the 12 months before: a rise of 9.0%. The count draws on public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. For a firm planning partner and associate hires into 2027, the headline matters less than where it sits in the run of years since 2022: a soft 2023, a recovery in 2024 to just above the 2022 level, a 2025 that was the largest full year, and a stronger stretch since.

Our year-on-year comparison uses windows that end in September, not October, for a practical reason. Start dates are confirmed with a delay, so the newest month always reads low, and a change measured on it would understate the market. On the settled basis, lateral moves rose 9.0%, from 13,128 to 14,305. Older years in any lateral record miss lawyers who have since left private practice, which lifts recent periods by a few points; this gain is well beyond that margin.

The rolling count to the end of October stands at 14,091 moves. It sits under the settled figure largely because October 2026 is still filling in, not because hiring slowed in the autumn. Partners took 27.7% of moves over the latest 12 months, and partner moves rose 8.4% on the settled basis, from 3,558 to 3,858, so the growth was not carried by junior hiring alone. The split by title has its own report.

For a hiring partner, the practical effect is more competing offers on the same candidates. A market that grew by this much leaves less room to let an offer sit for weeks while a committee meets.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, 2022 closed with 12,622 moves. The following year was the soft one: 2023 recorded 10,875, which is 86.2% of the 2022 total and the only full year below the one before it. Hiring came back in 2024 with 12,743 moves, already a little above the 2022 count. 2025 then reached 13,237, the largest of the four full years on record.

The margin of 2025 over 2022 is 615 moves. That gap is small against the few points by which the method lifts recent years, so 2025 reads as a modest step above 2022, not a clear break from it. The settled 12 months are a different matter. At 14,305 moves, they hold 1,068 more than calendar 2025 and 1.3 times the 2023 trough. 2026 itself runs only to October; it is a partial year and is not set against the full years here.

For firms that trimmed lateral budgets after 2023, the base has moved. A plan built on 2023 volumes, or even on 2024, understates how many rival firms are bidding for the same people today.

Lateral demand follows the work, and the deal record points the same way. Sartori & Partners count 48,216 dated deals in the settled 12 months against 43,590 a year earlier, a rise of 10.6%. Lateral moves rose 9.0% over the same windows, so hiring has kept roughly in step with transactional activity rather than running ahead of it.

The two series measure different things. Deal counts cover deals that firms and public registers announce with a date, so they show direction rather than the full volume of work. Much lateral hiring also sits outside deal work: moves involving litigation were 39.9% of the latest 12 months, and contentious practices barely register in deal counts. The practice ranking is covered separately.

With deal volume still rising, transactional groups should expect candidates to ask about pipeline before they ask about pay. A firm that cannot show recent mandates in the candidate's area will take longer to close the hire.

The rise did not come from a handful of very large hirers. In the 12 months to October 2026, 1,291 law firms made at least one lateral hire. The ten most active hirers accounted for 12.9% of all moves between them, which leaves the great majority of lateral hiring with firms outside that group. The busiest firm on the list hired in the 251-400 range; ranks are shown with bands, not counts.

For a firm outside that list, the rival offer on a given candidate is as likely to come from a regional or mid-size platform as from a global one. Compensation benchmarks and pitch materials should be built for that wider field, not only for the names at the top.

Not every month carried the gain. September 2026, the last month of the settled window, had 1,337 lateral moves against 1,473 in September 2025, a fall of 9.2%. September 2025 was one of the busiest months of that year, so the comparison sets an ordinary month against a strong one. The monthly rhythm of hiring has its own report.

Hiring plans should rest on the 12-month view. A single month, in either direction, is too short a base to change a recruiting budget or to pause a search that is already running.

Plan for a busier market. With 14,305 moves in the settled year, the pool of candidates in play is larger, and so is the number of firms competing for each of them. Expect more counteroffers and more candidates holding parallel conversations.

Use 2025 as the floor, not 2023. The trough of 10,875 moves is the wrong base for a hiring forecast; the four full years show it as the exception. A firm that sized its recruiting effort on that year is under-resourced for the market it now faces.

Shorten the process. When lateral moves rose 9.0% in a year, a search that takes a quarter to reach an offer risks losing the candidate to a faster firm. Agree the business case, the compensation range and the decision makers before the first meeting.

Watch deal flow as the early signal. Dated deals rose 10.6% on the settled windows and lateral hiring moved with them this year. If deal counts stall, transactional hiring is the first place a slowdown would show; contentious hiring tends to keep its own pace.

Read the market as Sartori & Partners do: on settled 12-month windows, against several years of history, and never on the newest month alone.