Antitrust Path to Partner 2026: Home-Grown and Finished on Time

Antitrust firms grow a larger share of their own partners than the market does. Sartori & Partners data show 97 lawyers promoted to partner in antitrust and competition between June 2025 and May 2026, or 0.87 promotions for every lateral partner the practice hired in the same months, against 0.79 across all practices. The answer to how long to make partner in antitrust is just as telling: 79.7% of the practice's new partners reached the title within 12 years of starting practice, against 75.4% in the market. The two facts belong together. A practice that promotes from inside, and does so on a predictable clock, gives a hiring partner a real choice: wait for the senior associate already in the building, or pay for the partner who is ready now. The sections below set antitrust against the whole market and against employment and labor, another practice that leans on promotion but finishes later.

The make-or-buy ratio sets the partners a practice promotes against the partners it hires from other firms over the same 12 months. Across the market, firms promoted 2,955 lawyers to partner and hired 3,749 lateral partners between June 2025 and May 2026, a ratio of 0.79. Antitrust and competition ran at 0.87. Litigation, which is tagged on 52.3% of antitrust lateral moves, stood at 0.80. Corporate and M&A, the practice that brings merger clearance work to the antitrust group, stood at 0.75. Both neighbors buy more of their partners than antitrust does.

The class itself is small. Antitrust's 97 promotions compare with 1,221 in litigation and 620 in corporate and M&A, so one large firm's partner round can shift the ratio by a few hundredths. Read it as a habit rather than a precise rate: antitrust firms reward their own associates with the title more often than the average practice does. The consequence for a lateral search is direct. The antitrust senior associates with the clearest internal path are the hardest to move, because their practice tends to promote them in place, and an offer has to beat a promotion the candidate can already see coming.

Time to partner runs from the first year of practice to the promotion, measured on 316 antitrust promotions over the last 5 years. The median antitrust partner was promoted after 10.0 years, the same as the market's 10.0 years. The difference sits at the far end of the class. In Sartori & Partners figures, 79.7% of new antitrust partners got there within 12 years, against 75.4% across all practices, a gap of 4.3 points. The mean comes in at 10.8 years against 11.1 years.

Antitrust does not make more early partners. Only 20.9% of its new partners made it within 8 years, below the market's 23.2%. What the practice does is bring most of each class home on schedule, leaving fewer associates waiting past the point where late promotions pile up elsewhere. For a firm promoting its own antitrust associates, the clock is predictable. An associate who has not made partner within 12 years is in the minority here, and more likely than most to listen to a lateral offer.

Employment and labor is the nearest comparison. It also promotes more partners per lateral hire than the market, at 0.95, slightly above antitrust. The two practices part on the clock. In employment, 70.0% of new partners were promoted within 12 years and the mean was 11.6 years. In antitrust the same figures are 79.7% and 10.8 years, a gap of 9.7 points in the share that finishes within 12 years. Employment builds from inside and makes its associates wait; antitrust builds from inside and gets them there.

Antitrust is not the quickest practice either. Private equity promoted 86.7% of its new partners within 12 years and corporate and M&A 83.9%, with medians of 9.0 years and 9.0 years. Those transactional practices promote faster but buy more of their partners, at 0.68 and 0.75 promotions per lateral hire. Antitrust is unusual in pairing a promotion habit with a finish ahead of the market. A firm weighing where to invest in associate training should expect an antitrust class to convert sooner than an employment class, and a class that converts sooner leaves fewer frustrated senior associates for rival firms to pick up.

The lateral side did not move much. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, antitrust lateral partner hiring held flat (+10.1%) year on year: 120 partner hires in the 12 months to September 2026 against 109 a year earlier, a gap that counts of this size produce by chance. Partners made up 32.4% of all antitrust lateral moves over the latest 12 months, against 28.9% over three years. The chart shows the level mix of the lateral flow.

With lateral partner supply unchanged, a firm that wants another antitrust partner next year chooses between a short list of movers and its own senior associates. At 0.87 promotions per lateral partner, rival antitrust groups lean on the second route more than firms in most other practices do. That narrows the lateral pool further: the candidates who would have moved for the title are often given it at home first.

Plan a home-grown antitrust partner on the practice's own clock: a median of 10.0 years from the first year of practice, with about four in five new partners (79.7%) promoted within 12 years. A firm that has no candidate within that window should start a lateral search now rather than wait for one to mature.

Price a lateral antitrust partner as a scarce hire. The flow of lateral partners is flat, and competitors promote 0.87 of their own for every partner they buy, against 0.79 in the market. Expect candidates close to promotion at their current firm to need a stronger case than title alone. The more movable group is the minority who were not promoted within 12 years, and partners whose firms have a crowded antitrust bench above them.

Protect your own pipeline. Sartori & Partners counted 97 antitrust promotions in the 12 months to May 2026. Every promotion a rival makes on time removes a candidate from the lateral market, and every associate you keep waiting past the market's usual finish becomes one.