Legal Specialties 2026: Insurance Litigation Shrinks, Fund Work Grows

Most legal specialties hired laterally at about last year's pace, and the few clear falls sit together. Sartori & Partners data show insurance coverage lateral moves fell 12.3% year on year, 419 against 478, while the whole market rose 9.0%. Anyone reading for the fastest growing legal specialties 2026 should start with what shrank: insurance coverage, professional liability and insurance defense all fell, and all three draw on the same insurance claims work. The rises are real but smaller in volume, and they sit in fund work, private wealth and artificial intelligence.

The three specialties that serve insurers and their policyholders moved in the same direction at once. Professional liability moves fell 13.1%, 346 against 398, and insurance defense moves fell 14.7%, 255 against 299. These are not swings on a thin base: each rests on hundreds of moves a year, which is why the reading is a real fall and not noise. Across the full list of specialties most changes stay inside the flat band, and no other group of related specialties fell together.

Over the same settled windows the market counted 14,305 moves against 13,128, so the insurance pool thinned while the rest of the market got busier. For a firm building an insurance bench, that means fewer lawyers in motion and more candidates who have to be approached rather than found.

The level of the fall differs by specialty. In insurance defense, partner moves fell 30.2%, 67 against 96, while partner moves across the market rose 8.4%. In insurance coverage, partner hiring held flat (-9.2%), 129 against 142, and partner hiring in professional liability held flat (-11.7%), 128 against 145. So in coverage and professional liability the fall shows more clearly among associates and counsel than among partners, while in defense the partners themselves moved less.

Partner moves in insurance defense are also held by few buyers: the top 10 hirers took 61.2% of them. A firm that wants a coverage or professional liability partner faces roughly last year's flow of candidates. A firm that wants a defense partner should expect a longer search, built on lawyers who are not looking.

A practice is the group a move was recorded under; a specialty is the lawyer's own focus. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database the two are counted separately, so they compare by direction only. The insurance and reinsurance practice held flat (+2.5%), 659 against 643, yet insurance coverage fell. Product liability and torts held flat (+2.3%), while insurance defense, recorded under it, fell. Litigation and disputes rose 7.5%, while professional liability did the opposite.

Outside insurance, the other clear falls are scattered and small. Labor and union relations fell 19.8%, 134 against 167; administrative and constitutional law fell 21.8%, 104 against 133; trust and estate litigation fell 30.1%, 58 against 83. They share no practice and no common buyer.

A hiring plan that reads only the practice line would conclude that insurance hiring is steady. At the specialty level it is not, and the coverage and defense lawyers a firm actually recruits are the ones moving less.

On the growing side, the clearest cluster is fund work. Secondaries and fund transactions moves rose 40.4%, 132 against 94; private fund formation rose 20.5%, 294 against 244; fund finance rose 34.1%, 122 against 91. Artificial intelligence moves rose 42.5%, 181 against 127. Wealth and family office rose 116.7%, 65 against 30: a real rise by the reading, but on a base so small that a handful of hires moves it.

These are partner markets. Partners made 50.0% of secondaries moves, 47.5% of artificial intelligence moves and 61.0% of wealth and family office moves, against 27.7% across the market. Secondaries partner moves rose 74.3%, 61 against 35.

These rises rest on smaller counts than the insurance falls: insurance coverage alone settled at 419 moves, against 181 for artificial intelligence. A firm adding a fund or private wealth partner competes for a small group in which a single hire shifts the year's count.

The size of the joining firm splits the two groups. Firms of 150-399 lawyers took 23.7% of insurance coverage moves and 28.8% of insurance defense moves, against 13.3% of all moves. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 90.2% of secondaries moves and 64.4% of artificial intelligence moves, against 53.6% for the market.

Sartori & Partners data also show a short list of buyers on the insurance side. The top 10 hirers took 36.8% of insurance coverage moves and 50.0% of insurance defense moves, against 12.9% across the market.

For a midsize firm, insurance remains home ground, but it competes there with a few specialist firms for a shrinking flow. A midsize firm hoping to enter fund work meets the largest firms, which took 90.2% of secondaries hires, for partners who rarely join smaller platforms.

In insurance defense, budget time: partner moves settled at 67 against 96 a year earlier, so plan to approach lawyers who are not in the market. Start with a target list of named partners at competing defense firms and expect a longer approach.

In coverage and professional liability, partner supply is near last year's level, with 129 coverage partner moves against 142. The gap is below partner level, so firms that promote from within in these areas are less exposed than firms that rely on lateral associates.

In fund work, artificial intelligence and private wealth, the rises are real but the counts are small, at 132 secondaries moves and 65 wealth and family office moves. Move early, expect to compete with firms of 1,000+ lawyers, and do not read one busy year as a deep pool.