Employment Matters in 2026: 93.9% Disputes, Public Employers First

Firm leaders who ask about employment litigation clients by industry get a clear answer from the public record, and a partial one. Sartori & Partners data show 346 recorded employment matters in the 12 months to October 2026, and 93.9% of them were disputes and investigations. Across all dated deals in every practice, disputes are 25.0%. We call this work matters, not deals, because almost all of it is contested. The client side is concentrated in two places: government and public-sector employers appear in 10.7% of matters, healthcare providers and payors in 8.4%. For a firm weighing an employment partner hire, that profile shows where contested work is visible, which books are most likely to travel, and what the record cannot see.

The gap in matter mix is the first fact to read. Of the practice's 346 matters, 325 were classed as disputes and investigations, a share 68.9 points above the weight of disputes among all dated deals. No other matter type is common enough in employment to publish for the period. The nearest comparison is the litigation practice, where disputes make up 98.0% of 1,788 recorded matters. Employment sits next to litigation in its mix and far from the transactional side of the market, where capital markets work is 25.7% of all dated deals and M&A 19.3%.

Values are almost never public here: only 2.6% of employment matters carry a published figure, so the record measures volume and client mix, not fees. These counts also include matters drawn from public court records, which is why they say nothing about how employment compares in size with other practices. Read the practice against itself. The consequence for a hiring firm is direct: the employment partners who show up most in public records are trial lawyers first, and a candidate's visible caseload speaks to courtroom activity, not to the counseling book that often carries a group's margins.

Government and public-sector bodies appear in 10.7% of employment matters, against 1.8% of all dated deals, about 5.9 times their weight in the wider market. Healthcare providers and payors follow at 8.4%, against 2.3% market-wide. Consumer goods and retail, at 6.1%, and individuals and consumers, also at 6.1%, complete the sectors with enough matters to publish.

The four published sectors share a trait: large, people-heavy workforces in agencies, school districts, hospitals, care networks and stores. Individuals stand out against the other comparisons too. They appear in 6.1% of employment matters, 2.5% of litigation matters and 1.4% of all dated deals; the category covers private persons who retain counsel in their own name. For recruiting, a partner whose following sits with public-sector or healthcare employers brings the client types that recur most in this record, and that work is easier to check against public filings before an offer than a book built on private counseling.

Behind the 346 employment matters stand 147 distinct clients, or 2.4 matters per client over 12 months. In litigation the same measure is 2.0, across 899 clients. Employment clients come back more often. A public employer or a hospital system with a large staff faces a steady flow of individual claims and tends to route them to the same panel of outside firms.

Repeat work is what makes employment books portable. The relationship is with an institution that keeps producing cases, not with a single trial that ends. That cuts both ways for a hiring firm. A partner who holds several panel appointments can bring a predictable caseload; a partner whose visible matters come from one client carries concentration risk. When you assess a lateral employment partner, ask for the institutional clients behind the last 3 years of work, how each one buys outside counsel, and whether a panel review is due in the next 12 months.

On settled 12-month windows, the employment matter count held flat (-1.2%), at 334 against 338. Over the same windows, lateral moves into the practice rose 6.9%, to 1,537 from 1,438. The market around employment moved more: all dated deals rose 10.6%, and litigation matters rose 9.3%.

Sartori & Partners hiring data come from public law-firm announcements, firm websites and professional profiles, checked monthly. At partner level, the count of lateral hires into employment held flat (+7.4%), at 333 against 310, a gap inside the noise for counts this size. So the added hiring came mostly below partner, while the stock of contested employment work on record stayed level. For a firm leader, a steady matter count against more hiring means more firms competing for the same visible disputes. A new employment partner will not walk into a growing pool of filed cases; the business case has to rest on clients who send both disputes and advice.

Employment practice is wider than its court filings. Handbooks and policies, pay audits, executive contracts and separations, internal investigations, union negotiations, and the workforce side of mergers rarely leave a public trace. That is why 93.9% of the recorded work is contested: the record sees what reaches a court. The lateral data confirm the litigation tilt among the lawyers who move. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, 83.4% of employment lateral moves were also recorded under litigation, and 7.1% under pensions, benefits and executive compensation.

Treat a candidate's public matter list as the floor of the book, not the book. Counseling clients rarely appear on a docket, so interview time is better spent on them: who calls the partner before a reduction in force, who uses the partner for policy work, and whether that advice leads to the litigation when a claim is filed. A group that wins the advice usually keeps the dispute that follows.

Recruit where the record shows repeat demand. Public employers, in 10.7% of matters, and healthcare providers, in 8.4%, are the client sectors that recur most, and their claims arrive as a stream. Expect a litigator: 83.4% of employment laterals carry a litigation record as well, so if the group needs counseling depth, test for it in the interview rather than assume it.

Do not read a level matter count as a weak market for candidates. The matter count held flat (-1.2%) while lateral hiring rose 6.9%: the constraint is competition for people, and offers should be priced for that. Finally, check portability by institution. With 147 distinct clients behind 346 matters, a few relationships can carry a practice, and the diligence that matters most is whether those clients will follow the partner.