Private M&A lateral hiring: flat inside a growing practice

Private M&A lateral hiring held flat (-0.9%) over the past year, while the practice it sits in grew quickly. Sartori & Partners data show 1,150 private M&A lateral moves in the 12 months to September 2026, against 1,160 in the 12 months before. Corporate and M&A as a whole rose 15.8% over the same windows, from 2,532 moves to 2,933. The whole lateral market rose 9.0%.

The gap matters because private M&A is not a side line. It accounts for 37.9% of corporate and M&A lateral moves and ranks 2nd of all specialities by lateral volume, first inside its own practice. Partner hiring shows the same split. Private M&A partner hiring held flat (-1.1%), at 441 against 446, while corporate partner hiring rose 12.2%.

The yearly series gives the longer view. Private M&A moves reached 1,153 in 2025, still below the 1,160 recorded in 2022, and 2026 stood at 1,011 by October. The corporate practice had already passed its 2022 count in 2025, at 2,594 against 2,514. For a firm planning a private M&A hire, competition for laterals did not build with the practice: roughly the same number of lawyers changed firms, so the pace of a search should match last year, not the corporate headline.

The other deal speciality in the practice tells the same story. Public M&A held flat (-7.8%), with 247 lateral moves in the settled 12 months against 268 a year earlier, and on counts this small that change sits inside the noise. Public M&A is also much smaller, at 8.4% of corporate and M&A moves. Both deal specialities held level while the practice rose, and both trade in partners more than the practice does: partners were 48.8% of public M&A moves and 38.8% of private M&A moves, against 29.9% across corporate and M&A. Sartori & Partners records also show where corporate and M&A moves overlap with other practices: private equity touches 38.2% of them, banking and finance 12.5% and capital markets 11.9%. A firm that measures its private M&A bench against the growth of its corporate group will overstate how hard this market is: the number of private M&A lawyers changing firms held level, whatever moved the corporate total, so a deal-side search should be timed and priced on that flat flow.

The work did not slow. Corporate and M&A deal counts rose 9.5%, from 10,198 dated deals to 11,170 in the settled windows. Law firms advised on 4,302 dated private M&A deals in the past 12 months and 11,786 over 3 years, and 88.4% of those 3-year deals were straight M&A. More deals against an unchanged flow of laterals means private M&A teams are carrying more work per lawyer, or filling the gap from within. Firms promoted 401 private M&A lawyers to partner in the 12 months to May 2026, after a median of 9.0 years of practice. Law-firm career pages also listed 701 private M&A openings on the data date, so the demand is on record even where moves did not follow. A firm short of deal capacity should weigh its own partner track alongside a lateral search, and expect those open roles to compete for the same candidates.

City mix is where private M&A parts most clearly from the market. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, London drew 149 private M&A lateral moves in 12 months, 13.2% of the total, for an index of 143 against the market. An index above the market level means the city holds a larger share of private M&A moves than of all lateral moves. Paris over-indexes further, at 173, on a base of 36 moves, and Milan highest of all, at 251 on a small base of 20. New York holds the largest count, 168, at an index of 101, close to its market weight. Washington sits at 34, the lowest index among the cities we publish, which fits a city whose lawyers lean to regulatory and government work.

A firm building private M&A capacity in London is recruiting in a pool that is deep relative to the market. In Washington the private M&A bench is thin, and a search there should be scoped wider than the city from the start.

Private M&A hiring leans more senior than its practice. Partners made up 38.8% of private M&A lateral moves in 12 months, against 29.9% across corporate and M&A and 27.7% in the market. Firm size tilts the same way. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 64.2% of private M&A laterals, against 53.6% for the market, a gap of 10.6 points. The ten most active hirers took 24.5% of private M&A moves, against 21.6% for the ten most active corporate hirers.

A firm outside the 1,000+ lawyers class competing for a private M&A partner will meet the largest platforms in most searches, across 279 firms that hired in the speciality this year. Its case has to rest on the role, the client access and the speed of the offer, not on scale.

Plan the search on the speciality's own numbers. Private M&A hiring held flat (-0.9%) while corporate and M&A rose 15.8%, so a private M&A mandate should not be priced or timed off the corporate total. Expect partner-level competition: partners are 38.8% of these moves, and the largest firms dominate the hiring. Look hardest in London, where the speciality over-indexes, and widen the net early anywhere the index sits below the market. Watch private equity: it overlaps with 38.2% of corporate moves, and a candidate who straddles both will have the most offers. Finally, count the internal route. With deal counts up and laterals level, promoting a senior associate may close the gap faster than a lateral search.