Net Partner Gains 2026: Only Four of the Top 10 Hirers Make the List

A search for "law firms gaining the most partners 2026" usually returns the firms that announced the most partner hires. That is a different list from the firms whose partnership grew. Sartori & Partners data show 3,904 lateral partner moves in the 12 months to October 2026, drawn from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. Ranked by net partner flow, meaning lateral partners hired minus partners who left for another firm, the first place goes to Greenberg Traurig, in the 41-60 band. Only four of the ten firms that hired the most partners also make the top 10 on that net measure. For a firm leader, the gap between the two lists is the gap between activity and growth: an arrivals tally records how busy a partnership was in the lateral market, while net flow records whether that market left it with more partners or simply turned some of them over.

Set the two rankings side by side and the overlap is narrow. Greenberg Traurig ranked 2nd for lateral partner hires and 1st by net partner flow. Paul Hastings placed 5th on hires and 4th on net. Willkie Farr & Gallagher placed 9th on hires and 3rd on net. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett made the hiring list in its last place, 10th, and ranked 2nd on net, the largest climb between the two tables. Those four firms are the whole overlap between the two lists. Each of them stands higher on net than on hires, which is the pattern a firm leader should look for in a peer: an intake that departures did not cancel out.

The net ranking also sits lower on the scale. The three largest partner hirers each took on partners in the 61-100 band. On net flow, only the first firm reaches the 41-60 band; the firms ranked 2nd to 6th sit in the 21-40 band and the last four in the 11-20 band. Every partner who leaves for a rival comes off the gross figure, so a net table always reads smaller than a hiring table. For a firm benchmarking its own partner growth, the net list is the right set of peers: a long run of partner announcements at a competitor says little about whether its partnership grew.

Six firms in the top 10 for partner hiring do not appear in the top 10 by net partner flow: Kirkland & Ellis, DLA Piper, Dentons, White & Case, Sidley Austin and Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani. The firm that hired the most partners, Kirkland & Ellis, is among them. Absence from the net list is not a negative figure: the table shows only the ten largest net gains, and a firm can add partners on balance and still rank below them.

The other six places on the net list go to firms outside the top 10 for partner hiring: Barnes & Thornburg, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Sullivan & Cromwell, Spencer Fane, King & Spalding and Dorsey & Whitney. They reached the net top 10 without ranking among the busiest partner buyers. A net place won on a smaller intake rests on keeping the partners a firm already has, which is the side of the equation an arrivals list never shows. For a firm setting its own growth target, the lesson is to plan on net: a budget that counts announced arrivals and ignores departures will overstate how far the partnership moves in a year.

The two rankings sit on a busier partner market. On the settled 12-month windows, lateral partner moves rose 8.4%, from 3,558 to 3,858, close to the 9.0% rise in moves at every level. Partners made up 27.7% of the 14,091 lateral moves recorded in the 12 months to October 2026.

Volume at the top does not set the market either. The ten busiest partner hirers together took 13.5% of partner moves, so most lateral partners joined firms outside that group. A rising market cuts both ways for a firm trying to grow its bench: there are more partners in motion to recruit, and more of its own partners fielding approaches. A firm that wants its partner count to rise through laterals should write retention of the current bench into the same plan as the hiring target, with names, practices and the date each partner was last spoken to.

Net lateral flow is one of two ways a partnership adds partners. Promotion figures stop at May 2026, the last complete month, so the 12 months used here run from June 2025 to May 2026. In the Sartori & Partners promotions record, 2,955 lawyers were made partner in that window, against 3,749 lateral partner arrivals over the same months. That is 0.79 promotions for each lateral partner hired, so across the market the lateral channel adds more partners than the internal one.

The promotion ranking, over that same window, is a third set of names. The firm that promoted the most lawyers to partner, Kirkland & Ellis, sits in the 61-100 band of promotions; the nine firms after it all sit in the 21-40 band. Four firms appear in both the promotion top 10 and the top 10 for lateral partner hires: Kirkland & Ellis, DLA Piper, Dentons and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is the only firm on all three lists: 4th for promotions, 10th for lateral partner hires and 2nd by net partner flow. The promotion and hiring windows differ by five months, so read the overlap as a pattern, not a like-for-like count. A firm comparing itself with peers should put the three figures together, promotions, lateral hires and departures, because any one of them alone misreads how the partnership is changing.

Net flow depends as much on who leaves as on who arrives. Sartori & Partners measure the share of each firm's lawyers who leave it in a year: across 525 firms, the median was 13.2%, with the middle range running from 10.2% to 16.6%. The rate covers lawyers at every level, measured since April 2026 and annualised, so it describes the pressure on a whole firm rather than on its partners alone.

Firms of 1,000+ lawyers had the highest median, 14.8%, against 11.9% for firms of 150-399 lawyers. For a large firm, a strong year of partner arrivals can sit next to a flat partnership; for a mid-sized firm with lower turnover, a modest intake goes further. Either way, the departure rate belongs in the hiring plan from the first day.

Measure partner growth net. Count lateral partners in, partners out to other firms and promotions over the same 12 months, and set the management committee's target against that figure, not against the arrivals list. The market's own numbers show why: 3,904 partners moved firms, and only four of the ten busiest partner buyers turned that activity into a top 10 net gain.

Pick peers from the net table. If the aim is a larger partnership, Greenberg Traurig, alone in the 41-60 band on net, is one useful comparison; Barnes & Thornburg and Taft Stettinius & Hollister, both in the 21-40 band on net without a place among the ten busiest partner hirers, are another. A rival's volume of announcements is a measure of effort, not of result.

Put retention on the same page as recruitment. With a median 13.2% of a firm's lawyers leaving each year, every partner kept is a partner the firm does not have to replace at lateral prices. Review the partners most likely to be approached, by practice, before the next search opens.

Use promotion as the second lever, with realistic weight. At 0.79 promotions per lateral partner across the market, an internal pipeline supports growth but rarely carries it alone. A firm whose net lateral flow is close to zero should expect its partner count to move only as fast as its promotion rounds.