Estate Planning Lateral Hiring 2026: Partners Lead the Hiring

Estate planning partner lateral hiring is growing faster than the speciality around it. Sartori & Partners data show that estate planning partner hiring rose 35.6% year on year, from 59 partner moves to 80 in the latest settled 12 months, while hiring at every level held flat (+10.3%). Across the whole lateral market, partner hiring rose 8.4% over the same windows. For a firm that plans to add an estate planning partner, the partner tier is where the movement is, and where competing offers now come from.

The yearly count shows the turn in plain figures. Estate planning partner moves sat between 58 and 67 a year from 2022 to 2025. By October, 2026 had reached 68, already above the strongest full year, with two months still to count.

Hiring below partner did not follow. Estate planning moves at every level numbered 225 in the latest settled 12 months against 204 the year before, so hiring at every level held flat (+10.3%). The market's partner count went from 3,558 to 3,858 on the same windows, and the speciality's partner rise runs well ahead of it.

A firm that budgets an estate planning partner search on last year's terms is likely to meet more competing offers for each candidate than it did a year ago.

The rise has shifted the level mix. In the 12 months to October 2026, partners made up 35.7% of the 221 estate planning lateral moves in the Sartori & Partners lateral database, against 32.6% in private client and estates and 27.7% across the market. Over three years the estate planning partner share was 30.5%, so the latest year sits 5.2 points above the speciality's own longer run.

Associates remain the largest group, at 51.1% of estate planning moves against 58.5% market-wide. Estate planning movers also stepped up a title more often: 18.1% joined at a higher title than the one they left, against 16.0% in the practice and 12.9% in the market. A lateral offer in this speciality often comes with a title step, and the step to partner is one of them.

For a hiring firm, the candidate's current title is a weak filter. A counsel with a settled client base at another firm may be the realistic partner hire, and will expect the partner title to come with the move.

Estate planning is the core of the private client practice. The speciality carries 66.8% of private client and estates lateral moves, close to two thirds, so its direction largely sets the practice's direction. Practice-wide, partner hiring moved less clearly: private client partner hiring held flat (+21.1%), at 109 partner moves against 90, and hiring at every level in the practice held flat (+9.1%).

Speciality and practice are counted separately, so the two sets of figures are read side by side for direction, not subtracted. Read that way, the clearest partner growth in private client work is in estate planning itself. The bench also overlaps with tax: 64.4% of private client and estates moves also involved the tax practice, against 26.3% that involved litigation and disputes.

A firm building private client capacity should start with the estate planning partner and staff the trust, tax and administration work around that hire, because that is the tier where candidates are moving.

Estate planning hiring runs on a different firm size from the rest of the market. Firms of 400-999 lawyers took 39.6% of estate planning lateral moves in the 12 months, against 23.4% across all practices, a gap of 16.2 points. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took only 17.1%, against 53.6% market-wide, and firms of 150-399 lawyers took 29.5%, against 13.3%.

The tilt is not new, but it has grown. Over three years, firms of 400-999 lawyers took 36.1% of estate planning moves, and the private client practice as a whole sent 38.1% of its 12-month moves to firms of that size. Estate planning is billed and staffed differently from institutional work, and regional and national firms that serve business owners and families close to home have kept investing in it.

For a firm of 400-999 lawyers, the main rival for an estate planning partner is a peer of the same size, not a global firm. A firm of 1,000+ lawyers is bidding in the smaller part of this market and should expect the candidate to compare rates and conflict rules before scale.

Geography is clearest over three years of moves. In the Sartori & Partners figures, New York took 12.5% of estate planning moves over three years, against 14.2% of all lateral moves, and London took 5.6% against 10.0%. Miami took 5.0% against 1.9%, Chicago 6.6% against 4.0%, and Boston 4.0% against 2.3%.

The work follows where families hold and pass on wealth. That lifts Miami, Chicago and Boston above their usual weight and leaves the large transaction centers, New York and London, below theirs. Most movers stay where they are: 22.7% of estate planning movers changed city in the latest 12 months, close to the market's 20.5%.

A search in Miami or Chicago draws on a deeper estate planning bench than the city's size suggests. In New York and London the speciality is a smaller share of a larger market, and the realistic candidate is a local hire, not a relocation.

Estate planning hiring is spread across many firms. In all, 133 firms hired at least one estate planning lawyer in the 12 months, and the ten most active took 22.4% of the individual hires, against 12.9% for the market's ten most active hirers. Over three years the ten most active estate planning hirers took 16.8%, from a field of 259 hiring firms, against 12.2% across the market. Taft Stettinius & Hollister ranked first among hirers at every level in the 12 months, in the 6-10 band, followed by Shipman & Goodwin and Dorsey & Whitney.

Over three years the partner order differs. Charles Russell Speechlys, Buchalter and Knights each hired estate planning partners in the 6-10 band, and several of the busiest 12-month hirers appear on both lists.

A firm outside these lists is not shut out. Several names recur on the 12-month and three-year lists, but the hires are spread across a wide field of firms, so the names above set the pace without holding the bench. The realistic opening is the partner whose current firm is not one of them.

Plan for partner competition. Estate planning partner hiring rose 35.6% on settled windows while hiring at every level held flat (+10.3%), so the rival offers in this speciality now cluster at partner level. Start the search before the client demand that prompts it is urgent.

Look at mid-size peers first. Firms of 400-999 lawyers took 39.6% of estate planning hires; that is where the candidates sit and where the competing bids come from.

Widen the title filter. With 18.1% of estate planning movers joining at a higher title, a counsel with a client following can be the partner hire.

Weigh the home-grown route honestly. Firms promoted 52 estate planning lawyers to partner in the 12 months to May 2026, after a median of 11.0 years in practice over 5 years of promotions. A firm that needs the capacity in this hiring cycle will have to buy it. In early November 2026, 121 estate planning openings were live on law-firm career pages, so the associates who would staff a new partner are in demand as well.