Tax Controversy Is a Senior Market, and Hiring Held Flat in 2026

Tax controversy lateral hiring leans toward senior lawyers far more than the market or the tax practice around it. Sartori & Partners data show that associates made up 38.3% of the 141 tax controversy lateral moves in the 12 months to October 2026, against 58.5% across the whole market and 48.5% in tax. Partners took 45.4% of those moves and counsel 16.3%. Tax controversy covers audits, administrative appeals and litigation against tax authorities, work that clients give to lawyers with a record in front of examiners and judges. For a firm building this bench, the lateral market supplies experienced names and few juniors, and every hiring plan should start from that fact.

The gap is widest at the bottom of the ladder. The associate share in tax controversy sits 20.2 points below the market and 10.2 points below tax as a whole. At the top, partners took 45.4% of tax controversy moves, against 37.9% in tax and 27.7% market-wide.

Counsel carry more weight here as well. Counsel took 16.3% of tax controversy moves, against 12.6% in tax and 12.7% across all practices. The mix holds over a longer run: over three years associates were 39.8% of tax controversy moves, against 49.7% in tax and 59.2% for the market, while partners were 44.0%.

A firm that wants a senior controversy lawyer below partner has a deeper counsel pool to approach than in tax generally, and should budget for that title from the first call. A firm that wants a third-year or fifth-year associate faces the opposite problem: associates are a smaller share of movers here than in tax or the market, so the junior end of the team is mostly trained in house.

In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, 18.4% of tax controversy laterals joined at a higher title than the one they left, against 15.5% in tax and 12.9% across the market. Over three years the figure was 19.1%, so the step up is a steady feature of the speciality rather than a single good year. A step up means associate or counsel to partner, or associate to counsel.

Home firms compete with that offer through their own track. Over the past 5 years the median tax controversy lawyer made partner after 10.0 years of practice, and 73.2% got there within 12 years. A senior counsel who expects the promotion at home within a year or two rarely moves sideways. For a hiring firm, the candidate who fits a partner seat is often a counsel or senior associate elsewhere, and the offer has to carry the title. A search that looks only at sitting partners sees part of the pool.

Tax controversy hiring held flat (+20.2%) year on year, with 155 moves in the 12 months to September 2026 against 129 a year earlier: at counts of this size, the gap sits inside the noise. Over the same windows the tax practice rose 23.8%, from 592 to 733 moves. Partner hiring in the speciality held flat (+13.8%), at 66 against 58.

Moves by tax controversy lawyers recorded under the tax practice made up 18.9% of that practice's moves in the 12 months. The direction differs: tax rose while controversy stayed level. A firm competing for controversy lawyers is not facing a bidding surge in this speciality. The constraint is the shape of the pool, which is senior, not its momentum.

Tax controversy hiring is spread across several cities. Over three years, New York took 8.6% of tax controversy hires, Washington, DC 8.1%, Atlanta 6.0% and London 6.0%: the first and fourth are 2.6 points apart. In tax as a whole over the same three years, New York took 14.2% and London 10.4%; across the market the figures were 14.2% and 10.0%.

Atlanta stands out most. Its 6.0% share of tax controversy hires over three years is 3.3 times its 1.8% share of all lateral moves, and well above the 2.4% it holds in tax. Toronto, at 5.8%, also sits far above its market weight of 1.0%. Washington, DC, home to the federal tax court, takes 8.1% against 5.2% market-wide. A search for a controversy partner that stays inside New York covers a small part of where this work is hired; Washington, DC, Atlanta, London and Toronto belong on the same list.

Among moves to firms of known size, firms of 1,000+ lawyers took 50.4% of tax controversy hires in the 12 months, against 49.9% in tax and 53.6% across the market. Firms of 400-999 lawyers took 26.2% and firms of 150-399 lawyers 17.0%.

Over three years, 193 firms hired tax controversy lawyers, and the ten that hired most took 26.5% of the individual hires, against 14.4% in tax and 12.2% across the market. DLA Piper ranks first on that list, in the 11-20 band of hires.

The list is concentrated by the standard of the wider market but still spread across many names, and its bands are close. A firm bidding for a controversy lawyer competes with several large firms at once, so the offer, the title and the platform for disputes with the tax authorities decide more than the brand of any single rival.

Plan the search around seniority. With partners at 45.4% of tax controversy moves and associates at 38.3%, the lateral market is the place to buy experience, not to fill the junior rows of a team. Budget for partner or counsel economics, and expect the candidate to ask for a higher title: 18.4% of movers got one.

Search wide on geography. Over three years the hires spread across New York, Washington, DC, Atlanta and London in close shares, with Toronto next at 5.8%. Build the associate tier at home, because the market will not supply it at the rate other practices do. In Sartori & Partners data, hiring in the speciality is flat, so the timing of a search matters less than reaching the counsel who are close to a partner title.