Employee Benefits Lateral Hiring 2026: Recruited From Employment

Sartori & Partners data show that employee benefits lawyer lateral moves rarely start and end inside a pure benefits group. Of the 252 benefits moves recorded in the past 12 months, 42.5% also carried employment and labor work and 18.3% tax work. The bench sits inside those two groups, and the firms that recruit it well look for it there.

The practice covers pensions, employee benefits and executive compensation, and it accounts for 1.8% of all lateral moves. This report reads it through its overlap with other practices. Each neighboring group is set against its weight in the whole market, and the sections that follow look at who hires, at which level, and in which cities.

Employment and labor was involved in 42.5% of benefits lateral moves, against 10.7% of all lateral moves. Tax shows the same pull from a smaller base: 18.3% of benefits moves against 5.0% market-wide, or 3.7 times its usual weight. These are the two groups where retirement plans, workforce terms and pay design meet benefits work every day.

Litigation reads differently. It appears in 36.9% of benefits moves, slightly under its 39.9% share of the whole market, so it is a large source without being a special one. Corporate and M&A sits at 17.9% against 20.7%. The overlap also runs the other way: benefits work was involved in 7.1% of employment and labor moves and 6.5% of tax moves, both well above the practice's 1.8% share of the market.

For a firm building a benefits bench, the first list to draw is employment and tax lawyers at other firms whose work includes plans or executive pay. A search that screens only for benefits in a lawyer's title will miss many of the people who actually change firms.

Two firms built around labor and employment work, Jackson Lewis and Ogletree Deakins, appear among the top 10 hirers of benefits lawyers over the past 12 months. They sit beside general firms of 1,000+ lawyers, which received 61.9% of benefits moves against 53.6% market-wide.

Hiring is concentrated for a small practice. The top 10 hirers took 25.4% of benefits moves, against 12.9% for the top 10 across the market, and the moves were spread over 143 hiring firms. A mid-sized firm recruiting here competes with large platforms on one side and employment specialists on the other, and both are fishing in the same employment-heavy pool.

Benefits lateral moves rose 16.6% on the settled 12-month windows, 253 against 217. The whole market rose 9.0% over the same windows, 14,305 against 13,128. Of the two closest neighbors, employment and labor rose 6.9% and tax rose 23.8%.

The partner line did not follow. Benefits partner hiring held flat (+6.9%), 77 moves against 72, a gap too small at these counts to call a change. Partner hiring across all practices rose 8.4%. More benefits lawyers moved, but the pool of partners on offer did not widen in step.

For a firm that wants a benefits partner, a busier practice does not mean a longer shortlist. Plan on roughly the same number of partner candidates as last year, and expect each one to hear from several of the firms listed in this report.

Over three years, 203 of the practice's 674 lateral moves were partner moves. Kirkland & Ellis heads that three-year list in the 6-10 band, and each of the other nine firms in the top 10 sits in the 3-5 band. No single buyer dominates partner hiring in benefits.

The level mix leans senior. Partners made up 30.2% of benefits moves in the past 12 months against 27.7% market-wide, and counsel 19.8% against 12.7%. Benefits movers also stepped up more often: 17.5% joined at a higher title than the one they left, against 12.9% in the market.

The counsel tier is where a firm can find tomorrow's benefits partner. A firm that cannot land a partner can hire a counsel out of an employment or tax group and promote on its own timetable.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, Chicago took 8.3% of benefits moves against 4.2% of all moves, an index of 196. London indexes at 137 and New York at 118. The Chicago pull belongs to benefits itself: employment and labor indexes at 106 in the city and tax at 123.

Benefits lawyers also relocate less than most: 17.3% changed city when they moved, against 20.5% across the market. A firm with a Chicago office should treat the city as a main source of benefits candidates, and a firm without one should not count on a relocation.

Sartori & Partners data point to four steps. First, start in employment and tax groups, which were involved in 42.5% and 18.3% of benefits moves. Second, budget time for a partner search: partner moves held at 77 in the latest settled year, so the larger total does not mean more partners. Third, use the counsel tier, 19.8% of benefits moves, as a route to a partner you promote. Fourth, if Chicago is in the plan, recruit there directly, since the city indexes at 196 and few movers change city.