Private Client Lateral Hiring 2026: Most Moves Skip the Largest Firms

Sartori & Partners data show that private client lawyer lateral moves follow a different map from the rest of the market. In the 12 months to October 2026 the practice recorded 331 lateral moves into 192 hiring firms. Only 18.9% of those moves landed at firms of 1,000+ lawyers, against 53.6% across all practices. Firms under 150 lawyers took 18.9%, against 9.7% for the market as a whole.

For a firm building a trusts, estates and wealth planning bench, that changes who the rival bidder is. It is rarely a global platform. More often it is a regional or mid-size firm with an established fiduciary and family-office group. The sections that follow measure this against all practices and against tax and real estate, the two practices that private client work borders most often.

Firm size is where this practice departs most from the market. Across all practices, firms of 1,000+ lawyers absorb 53.6% of lateral moves. Private client runs at 18.9%, 34.7 points lower. The weight moves to the middle and the bottom of the size range: firms of 400-999 lawyers took 38.1% against 23.4%, firms of 150-399 lawyers 24.2% against 13.3%, and firms under 150 lawyers 18.9% against 9.7%.

The neighbors sit much closer to the market. Tax sends 49.9% of its moves to firms of 1,000+ lawyers and real estate 44.0%. Private client lawyers often advise the same families as tax lawyers, yet the two groups move into very different kinds of firm.

A firm of 1,000+ lawyers that wants a private client partner is bidding in a pool where most candidates have picked smaller platforms. It should expect questions on rate structure, conflicts policy and the standing of the practice inside the firm before pay becomes the topic. A mid-size firm, by contrast, mostly competes with peers it already knows.

Over three years the practice recorded 991 lateral moves. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 19.3% of them, against 52.5% market-wide, and firms under 150 lawyers took 17.1% against 8.6%. The 12-month shares sit close to the three-year ones, so this is the settled shape of the practice rather than a single year.

The firms these lawyers leave tell a related story. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, 18.8% of private client movers over three years came from firms under 150 lawyers, against 11.4% across the market. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers are a larger share of where private client lawyers come from (30.1%) than of where they go (19.3%).

For firms of 400-999 lawyers, which took 38.2% of private client moves over three years, the largest firms are a regular source of candidates. For small firms the supply runs both ways: they send lawyers into the market and take them back.

Sartori & Partners records show 25.6% of private client lateral moves with both cities known involved a change of city, against 20.5% for all practices. Over three years the share is 28.1% against 21.6%. Tax, at 21.1%, and real estate, at 20.4%, sit near the market figure.

A practice built on long family relationships carries those relationships with the lawyer, and families with assets in several states follow their advisers across borders. For a hiring firm the point is practical. With 25.6% of movers relocating, a search that stops at the city line leaves out a real part of the candidate pool, and relocation is a normal term to negotiate rather than an obstacle.

Only two cities clear the publication threshold for private client moves in the past 12 months, and they point in opposite directions. Chicago took 24 moves, 7.3% of the practice, an index of 172 against its share of the whole market. New York took 23, or 6.9%, an index of 47: the city with the most lateral moves overall is under-represented here.

The three-year view adds cities that fall under the threshold in any single year. New York held 11.0% of private client moves over three years, London 7.7% and Chicago 5.9%. Chicago is also the most frequent city of origin in the past 12 months, at 6.9% of private client movers.

For a Chicago firm, competition for the same candidates is heavier than the size of the city suggests, and the same lawyers are being approached by several firms. For a New York firm, the local pool is thin against the city's weight, which argues for looking at candidates in other markets first.

Sartori & Partners counted 336 private client moves in the latest settled 12-month window against 308 in the year before, so the practice held flat (+9.1%). The percentage is about the same as the market's, which rose 9.0% on thousands of moves. A few hundred moves are too small a base for a change of that size to be told apart from chance, so it is not counted as a rise. A firm should read private client volume as steady, not as falling behind the rest of the market.

Partners carry more weight here than elsewhere. They made up 32.6% of private client moves in the past 12 months, against 27.7% across the market. Partner hiring held flat (+21.1%), with 109 in the settled window against 90 the year before.

Steady supply means neither a rush nor a lull. A firm can run a private client search on its normal calendar, and should not wait for the pool to grow before it starts.

Hiring in this practice is more concentrated than in the market. The top 10 hirers took 20.1% of private client moves in the past 12 months, against 12.9% for all practices, and 31.5% of partner moves, against 13.5%. Taft Stettinius & Hollister ranks first across all levels and Charles Russell Speechlys first for partners.

The list shares no name with the market-wide top 10 hirers, which is the firm-size finding seen from another angle. The rest of the demand is spread over 192 hiring firms, so a candidate usually has a small set of repeat buyers to weigh and a long tail of firms making a single hire.

First, size the offer to the pool. With 18.9% of private client moves going to firms of 1,000+ lawyers, a large firm should assume most candidates are weighing smaller platforms, and build the case around practice autonomy, conflicts and rates. Second, widen the map: 25.6% of movers changed city, so a search confined to one office misses part of the market. Third, treat Chicago, at an index of 172, as contested ground, and New York as a market where the local bench is thin. Fourth, expect a stable pool: the practice accounts for 2.3% of all lateral moves, and that supply has held steady over the past year.