Corporate Lending in 2026: 2,010 Deals, Lateral Hiring Flat

For corporate lending law firms deals and hiring have pulled apart over the past year. Sartori & Partners data show that firms advised 2,010 dated corporate lending deals in the 12 months to October 2026, while 292 corporate lending lawyers made a lateral move in the same months. On the settled year-on-year measure, corporate lending hiring held flat (-1.3%). Banking and finance hiring as a whole rose 14.1%, and the banking and finance deal count rose 12.1%. The work sits in the speciality and the practice around it is growing, but corporate lending lawyers are changing firms at last year's pace. For a firm that wants more lending capacity, that gap sets the terms of the search: the pool in motion is no larger than it was, and the practice's rising deal count is not adding to it.

Read the deal book by client, not by size. Banks and financial institutions were 16.5% of corporate lending deals over 3 years, close to the 18.5% seen in acquisition and leveraged finance. The split is in sponsors: financial sponsors were only 5.1% of corporate lending deals against 14.1% in acquisition and leveraged finance, a gap of 9.0 points. Across the whole banking and finance practice, sponsors were 6.6% of dated deals in the last 12 months; the windows differ, so read that as context.

Hiring follows the same line. Corporate lending lawyers made 14.8% of banking and finance lateral moves, against 17.5% for acquisition and leveraged finance. Lending is the routine, high-volume end of finance work: revolving facilities, term loans, amendments and refinancings that keep a bench busy without drawing attention, for lenders that come back year after year. For a hiring firm the consequence is plain. A corporate lending partner who moves is leaving steady bank relationships, and the current firm has every reason to fight to keep them in place.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, corporate lending moves went from 313 in the earlier settled 12 months to 309 in the latest, so hiring held flat (-1.3%). Over the same windows banking and finance moves went from 1,766 to 2,015, and that hiring rose 14.1%. Acquisition and leveraged finance hiring held flat (-3.1%), on 381 against 369 moves. The growth in the practice came from other parts of finance, not from its two largest deal specialities.

Deal work moved the other way. The banking and finance deal count went from 2,710 to 3,039 dated deals, and the count rose 12.1%. At partner level the picture holds: corporate lending partner hiring held flat (-2.9%), on 103 against 100 partners, while banking and finance partner hiring rose 10.6%. A firm should not expect more corporate lending partners on the market next year because deal volume is rising. Rising volume tends to keep busy lending partners where they are.

Over 3 years Sartori & Partners recorded 5,328 dated corporate lending deals. Banking and lending deals were 54.5% of them and leveraged and acquisition finance 25.3%, with project and infrastructure finance at 4.9%. In the acquisition and leveraged finance speciality, by contrast, leveraged and acquisition finance deals were 79.7% of the book. Banks and financial institutions were the largest client industry on corporate lending deals, at 16.5%.

The mix matters for what a firm is buying. A corporate lending lawyer spends most of the time on bank-led facilities, with a large minority of sponsor-backed acquisition debt. That is a different skill set from a leveraged finance specialist, and the two benches should be hired against different briefs. A firm that wants to grow lender-side relationships needs a corporate lending hire; a firm that wants to follow private equity sponsors into their financings will find the acquisition finance pool a closer fit.

Cahill Gordon & Reindel, Jones Day and Latham & Watkins advised the most corporate lending deals over 3 years, each in the 401-700 band. The 12-month hiring list is headed by Sidley Austin, DLA Piper and Eversheds Sutherland, every firm on it in the 6-10 band of hires. Only two names appear on both lists: Latham & Watkins, which ranks 8th among hirers, and Jones Day, which ranks 10th.

Hiring is concentrated even so. The top 10 hirers took 25.3% of corporate lending lateral moves, against 19.9% across banking and finance and 12.9% across the market, and only 129 firms hired a corporate lending lawyer at all in 12 months. In this speciality, a large deal book and a large lateral intake mostly sit at different firms. For a firm that wants to build, that splits the field in two: the volume firms are the likeliest source of experienced candidates, and the active hirers are the rivals bidding for them.

Partners were 34.2% of corporate lending lateral moves in 12 months, against 30.8% in banking and finance and 27.7% in the market. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 63.9% of corporate lending hires, against 53.6% market-wide. New York drew 22.3% of the moves, an index of 151 against the market, and London 15.8%, an index of 171.

Firms also make their own lending partners. From June 2025 to May 2026, 67 corporate lending lawyers were promoted to partner, after a median of 9.0 years in practice, against 10.0 years in acquisition and leveraged finance. A firm that needs a lending partner with a client following this year will be bidding at partner level, in one of two cities, against large platforms.

Treat a corporate lending hire as a scarce-supply search in a busy market. The speciality advised 2,010 deals in 12 months and the practice's deal count rose 12.1%, while corporate lending hiring held flat (-1.3%): rising deal flow is not producing extra candidates. Start with the volume firms on the deal list, where lawyers carry the most transactions, and expect the active hirers to be in the same conversations. Plan for a counter-offer: a lawyer leaving that much work is expensive to replace. Look hard at associates and counsel, who were 52.1% and 13.7% of the moves, as the route to capacity that a partner search alone will not deliver. And write the brief around the work: bank-led lending and sponsor-led acquisition finance draw on different pools.