Public Law Matters in 2026: Clients Are Institutions, Not Companies

Most practices sell to companies. Public law sells to the state and to the institutions around it. Sartori & Partners data show 850 recorded public law matters in the 12 months to October 2026, for 424 distinct clients, and the largest client group is government itself, present in 21.5% of them. Anyone looking for public law firms for government and nonprofits is looking at a market where the buyer is a ministry, an agency, a city, a charity or a university. We call this work matters, not deals, because court and agency records make up most of it. For a firm leader planning a public law hire, the question is less which sector a partner covers and more which public bodies trust that partner with their cases.

Government and public sector clients appear in 21.5% of public law matters but only 1.8% of all dated deals, a weight 11.9 times higher. Seen from the other side, public law matters account for 21.5% of every recorded matter or deal with a government client. No other client group comes close inside this practice. The commercial sectors that dominate the deal record sit at or below their usual weight here: real estate appears in 4.1% of public law matters against 4.5% of all deals, and healthcare providers and payors in 2.4% against 2.3%.

Each share counts the matters that involve that client group, and one matter can involve several, so the figures are read one at a time and never added up. The pattern still holds: in public law the state is the anchor client, and private industry is a side line. A candidate whose book is mostly corporate regulatory work for companies is a different hire from one who acts for public bodies, even when both carry the same practice label.

Nonprofits and charities appear in 9.9% of public law matters, 14.1 times their 0.7% share of all deals. Education follows at 7.4%, which is 12.3 times its 0.6% weight in the whole record. Both groups are small buyers of legal work overall and large buyers of this practice: public law matters cover 25.5% of all recorded charity work and 21.1% of all education work.

The second largest group is not an institution at all. Individuals and consumers appear in 14.5% of public law matters, 10.4 times their market weight. Public law disputes often set a person against a public body, so the same matter can carry a government label and an individual one. For hiring, this splits the practice in two benches: lawyers who defend and advise public bodies, and lawyers who bring claims against them. A firm should know which side a candidate's matters sit on before it counts them.

In the Sartori & Partners matter records, disputes and investigations account for 80.6% of public law matters, against 25.0% across all dated deals, a ratio of 3.2 times. M&A is a sliver at 2.6%, against 19.3% in the market. Health care, another practice built around regulated clients, is far more mixed: disputes are 41.5% of its matters and M&A 30.6%.

Because so much of the record comes from courts and agencies, matter counts here measure how often a practice shows up in contested public files, not fees. Values are rarely published: only 3.5% of public law matters carry one. A public law partner should be tested on trial and agency work, judicial review, procurement challenges and investigations, and on how many of those matters the partner ran rather than staffed.

Recorded public law matters went from 796 to 866 between the two settled 12-month windows, so they rose 8.8%. All dated deals across practices rose 10.6% over the same windows, so public law kept pace with the wider record. Hiring did not follow. Lateral moves into the practice were flat, at 308 against 324, a change of -4.9%. Partner moves were unchanged at 104 in both windows.

The bars give scale only. The 2026 bar, at 737 with two months to come, is already close to the 786 of the full 2025 year. More work on a steady bench means the existing teams carry more matters each. That gap tends to close through hiring, and firms that move first choose from a pool that has not yet grown.

Morrison & Foerster heads the list of firms by recorded public law matters, in the 21-40 band, with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Leigh Day in the same band. The rest of the top 10 sit in the 11-20 band. The list mixes large US firms with UK firms known for claimant and public law work, which matches the split between acting for public bodies and acting against them.

Of these ten, only Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher also appears among the top 10 lateral hirers in the practice, where Holland & Knight ranks first. Hiring is spread thin: the top 10 hirers took 22.0% of public law lateral moves, across 163 hiring firms. The firms that appear most in public files are not the ones buying talent, which leaves their benches open to approach.

Sartori & Partners figures describe a practice whose clients are public institutions, whose work is mostly contested, and whose volume grew while hiring did not. Three consequences follow. First, test a candidate's client list for public bodies: government appears in 21.5% of matters, nonprofits in 9.9% and education in 7.4%, and those relationships rest on procurement panels and track records that move slowly. Second, hire litigators, not advisers: with disputes at 80.6% of the work, courtroom and agency experience is the core skill. Third, move now. Matters rose 8.8% and lateral hiring held flat (-4.9%), so demand for experienced public law lawyers is running ahead of supply.