IP Matters in 2026: Up 20.9% While the Lateral Bench Held Flat

Intellectual property law firm demand is rising faster than the supply of lawyers who can meet it. Sartori & Partners data show 5,352 recorded IP matters in the 12 months to October 2026, handled for 3,121 distinct clients. On the settled windows that measure change, the count of matters rose 20.9%, while lateral hiring into the practice held flat (+7.2%). We call this work matters, not deals: almost all of it is contested. For a firm leader, the gap between those two lines is the central fact of the IP market this year, and it shapes how long the next IP partner search will take and what it will cost.

Recorded IP matters went from 4,399 to 5,319 between the two settled 12-month windows, a rise of 20.9%. All dated deals across practices rose 10.6% over the same windows, so IP grew at 2.0 times the pace of the market as a whole. The closest comparison is the litigation practice, which handles the same kind of contested work: its matter count rose 9.3%. IP accounts for 11.1% of all dated deals and matters in our records: a count of matters on record, not a measure of fees or of size against other practices.

The yearly bars show the scale of the work, not a growth rate, and are not read as several years of market growth. The settled 12-month windows carry the comparison, and on those windows the rise is real at this size, not noise. A practice whose workload rose 20.9% in a year does not absorb it with the partners it already has.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, IP lawyers who changed firms numbered 1,058 in the latest settled window against 987 the year before: the count held flat (+7.2%). The partner count held flat (+8.0%), at 352 against 326. Put the two series side by side and the pressure is plain. Recorded matters ran at 4.5 for every IP lateral hire in the earlier window and at 5.0 in the latest one.

IP holds 11.1% of recorded deals and matters but only 7.4% of lateral moves, where it ranks 7th among practices. The bench also leaks to companies: 123 IP lawyers left private practice for in-house roles in the past 6 months, a flow tracked in full only since May 2026. Associates make up 49.7% of IP lateral moves and partners 34.4%, so the senior people who run contested matters are the scarcest part of a pool that is not growing.

Disputes and investigations make up 95.3% of recorded IP matters. Across all dated deals the same type holds 25.0%. Transactional IP work barely registers: M&A carries 0.6% of IP matters and venture and growth financings 0.7%. IP disputes alone are 42.3% of every dispute matter we record.

The hiring side matches the work. Of IP lateral moves, 54.3% also involve litigation, so the IP market is in large part a market for trial lawyers with technical or brand expertise. Values are a weak guide here: only 2.0% of IP matters carry a published value, against 6.4% in litigation, so counts are the measure to trust. A firm building IP capacity should screen candidates for courtroom and contested-proceedings experience first and prosecution or licensing work second.

Consumer goods and retail companies appear in 8.8% of IP matters, the largest client industry, against 3.1% of all deals. Food, beverage and agriculture companies appear in 6.5%, 2.7 times their weight in the deal market. Technology and software, at 7.0%, and pharma and biotech, at 6.3%, sit close to their market shares of 6.8% and 6.8%. Media and entertainment (4.8%) and sports (2.1%) also over-index. One matter can touch several industries, so these shares overlap and are read one by one.

The client base is broad. The 3,121 distinct clients behind the year's matters work out to 1.7 matters per client, so the work is spread across many brand owners rather than concentrated in a few repeat filers. For a recruiting partner, a trademark and brand-protection litigator with consumer-sector relationships is a more direct answer to this demand than another patent generalist.

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton heads the list of firms by recorded IP matters, in the 151-250 band. The list is weighted toward firms with large dedicated IP groups rather than the firms that dominate transactional rankings. The busiest IP hirers are a different set: Morrison & Foerster heads the lateral list, and Womble Bond Dickinson is the only firm in both top 10 lists. The top 10 hirers took 15.2% of IP lateral moves, so hiring is spread across 352 firms.

The firms carrying the most matters are therefore not, on this evidence, the ones adding the most lateral capacity. That leaves their IP partners stretched and makes them a realistic source of candidates for any firm that can offer a lighter load or a stronger contested-matters platform.

Sartori & Partners figures point to a seller's market for IP talent. Matters rose 20.9% while the number of IP lawyers changing firms stayed flat, at 1,058 against 987. Three consequences follow. First, budget for a longer IP partner search and expect counteroffers, because the people you want are busy at firms that also need them. Second, hire for disputes: almost all recorded IP work is contested, and the overlap with litigation in lateral moves confirms it. Third, follow the brands, since consumer goods, food and beverage, media and sports clients over-index on IP work in a way technology and pharma do not. Firms that wait for the lateral pool to grow will be waiting on a line that has not moved in a year.