Merger Control Lawyer Recruiter

The size-of-transaction threshold for 2026 is $133.9 million, up from $126.4 million. The adjusted $200 million threshold is $535.5 million. Above $535.5 million, the size-of-person test does not apply. Between $133.9 million and $535.5 million, it does. The FTC published the revised thresholds and the filing-fee schedule on 14 January 2026. Both took effect on 17 February 2026, as the Commission's Competition Matters note states. The fee runs from $35,000, for transactions under $189.6 million, to $2,460,000, for transactions of $5.869 billion or more. The FTC's own example: a deal valued at $130 million that closes on or after 17 February 2026 is below the new minimum, even though $130 million was above the prior $126.4 million minimum.

The waiting period is statutory. For most acquisitions it is 30 days. For a cash tender offer it is 15 days. That split is in the HSR Act itself, 15 U.S.C. § 18a(b). The period starts when the filing is complete. The weeks a company actually spends are the ones before submission, on the overlap narrative. Those weeks are why an in-house filing seat exists. The merger-control market article is the buy-versus-rent read for that calendar. This page is the search for the lawyer who holds the seat, or for the firm lawyer who files it.

The form itself moved the other way. The expanded HSR form that took effect on 10 February 2025 was vacated by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on 12 February 2026. On 19 March 2026 the Fifth Circuit denied the FTC's motion for a stay, so the vacatur took effect while the appeal continues. Filers may use the form and instructions that were in force before 10 February 2025. The FTC has also said it will still accept a voluntary filing on the 2025 form. White & Case's 19 March 2026 alert records the docket, Chamber of Commerce v. FTC, No. 6:25-cv-00009, and both dates.

Hiring follows that sequence. Fiscal 2025 still produced 2,006 notifications and 41 second requests, on the 2 July 2026 report, so the investigation tail did not disappear. What changed in March 2026 is the ordinary file. A senior associate hired only because a team needed bodies for the expanded narrative is a weaker brief than a counsel who has run a second request, a remedy negotiation, or a pull-and-refile. Equity partners whose clients are repeat filers are still a long notice-period hire. Washington and New York are the U.S. markets where those filing laterals concentrate: antitrust recruiters in Washington and antitrust recruiters in New York.

Of the 9 law-firm laterals in the January 2023 through September 2026 series, the median shortlist was day 41 and the median accepted offer was week 19. One of those nine, in 2024, was a merger-control partner moving from Washington to a New York platform. The search landed on that median: shortlist on day 41, accepted offer in week 19. The partnership notice period was 90 days. The clients who moved were repeat filers. The litigation docket stayed behind. That file is one of the 9, not a separate count.

Law firms hire when a filing partner is at capacity, when a counsel leaves for government or in-house, or when a platform wants a Washington or Brussels capability it has been renting. The test on the shortlist is documentary. Has this lawyer been the principal drafter on a Form CO, an HSR filing that drew questions, or a CMA briefing paper that ended in a no-further-questions letter? Tribunal experience matters for the litigation page. It does not substitute here. Of the 9 law-firm searches, the median ran to week 19 because notice periods and conflicts run long, not because the market has no names.

Companies hire a different person. The in-house filing manager decides when the clock is allowed to start, which form to use, and when outside counsel is instructed for a remedy or a second request. The chief legal officer still signs the company's position. The in-house search line is the route for that seat. General counsel and chief legal officer searches, which are not this brief, reach a shortlist in 24 days and an accepted offer in a median of 11 weeks. On the 8 in-house filing seats in this series, the median shortlist was day 29 and the median accepted offer was week 13.

One of those eight, in 2025, was a deputy general counsel for an NYSE-listed industrial group in Chicago. The search landed on that in-house median: shortlist on day 29, accepted offer in week 13. The antitrust market in that city is on the Chicago antitrust page. The deputy had signed Form CO filings in more than one regime. The company did not hire a litigator and rename the role.

The shortlist was people who had signed the form. We did not need another litigator. The deputy we hired had already run a multi-regime filing calendar.

Sponsors look like the company hire, with a faster deal cadence and a fund structure the lawyer has to tolerate. The wrong profile is a second-request specialist who has never lived inside a sponsor's signing calendar. The wrong profile the other way is a funds lawyer with no merger filing. New-regime companies, the Australian case above all, are hiring a first competition counsel who can say "this one notifies" before external counsel is on the clock. Agency alumni are candidates in all four categories. We do not recruit for the agencies themselves on this page.

3 of the 8 in-house filing seats drew a counter-offer. Acceptance across all 17 searches was 94 percent. Firm-wide in-house offer acceptance is 96 percent. Retention of placed in-house leaders is 97 percent at 12 months and 91 percent at 24 months. This page does not publish a separate retention rate for these 17 searches. Across all 17, the combined median shortlist was day 34 and the combined median to an accepted offer was week 16. Those combined medians sit between the in-house medians and the law-firm medians. They are not a third clock.

Every search is retained. There is no contingency. The fee is 25–30 percent of the hire's total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of that fee is paid as a retainer at engagement and kept if the client cancels. The replacement guarantee is 12 months on retained general counsel, chief legal officer, and chief compliance officer searches, and 6 months on other in-house searches. A deputy general counsel hired for merger filings is in the 6-month category unless the role is itself a chief legal officer seat. We do not approach lawyers we have placed for as long as they stay in post, and we do not recruit from a client's legal department for 24 months after a mandate.

The method is the same on a firm lateral and an in-house filing seat, and the clock is not. Week one is the brief: regimes in scope, whether the hire will own foreign-subsidy and foreign-investment forms as well as merger control, and whether the company should stay on a panel. The market article is the document a general counsel should read before that week if the question is still "hire or rent." Mapping and private outreach follow. Nothing is sent to the client without the candidate's written consent. Conflicts are checked before the first call.

Measured on this series, from January 2023 through September 2026: in-house filing seats, 8 searches, median shortlist day 29, median accepted offer week 13. Law-firm laterals, 9 searches, median shortlist day 41, median accepted offer week 19. All 17 searches, median shortlist day 34, median accepted offer week 16. Acceptance 94 percent. Counter-offers on 3 of the 8 in-house seats. The Chicago deputy general counsel search and the New York partner search are the two files described above. They are inside those medians, not additional searches.

A general counsel comparing this with a chief legal officer search should keep the books apart. Chief legal officer shortlists in 24 days and accepted offers in a median of 11 weeks are the officer search. Week 13 is the filing-counsel median on 8 seats. They are close. They are not the same mandate, and the samples are not the same sample.

Antitrust and competition recruiting is the parent. Antitrust litigation and unfair competition are the sibling specialisms. City pages for the practice, which include filing lawyers and are not limited to them: Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco.

Read the merger-control market article before opening an in-house requisition. It is the calendar: when the seat belongs on the payroll, what U.S. cash data will and will not price, and why the weeks that matter sit before the statutory clock. This recruiter page does not repeat that argument. It says who gets hired once the company, or the firm, has decided the seat is real, and what the 2025 filing volumes and the 2026 U.S. and Australian rule changes do to the brief.