Restructuring & Insolvency Laterals
Restructuring Lateral Partner Recruiting
Filings rose in 2025. Bankruptcy hours did not. A restructuring lateral is a bet on matters that do not recur — we underwrite the book, the guarantee and the covenants for that practice.
Hire the side of the debt you do not already have.
A restructuring lateral partner recruiter works for the managing partner, the chair, or the practice head who has to add a debtor bench, a creditor bench, a committee practice, or a lender desk. The search is retained. The question is which book actually moves.
Calendar-year 2025 is a poor reason to hire, taken alone. U.S. bankruptcy filings rose 11 percent to 565,759, from 508,953 in 2024, Epiq AACER and the American Bankruptcy Institute reported on 12 January 2026. Commercial Chapter 11 filings rose 1 percent, to 7,940 from 7,893. Subchapter V elections inside Chapter 11 rose 11 percent, to 2,446 from 2,202. That last figure is a small-business product. It is not an Am Law partner book.
Hours tell the other half. Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law, in the January 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market, measured 2025 billable-hour demand against 2024 across 184 U.S. firms. Bankruptcy hours fell 0.8 percent. Bankruptcy was 2 percent of 2024 hours. M&A hours rose 3.3 percent in the same table. A chair who staffs to the filing chart is staffing the wrong series.
The firm-wide method — market map, lateral partner questionnaire, conflicts, integration — is lateral partner recruiting. The practice facts are who is hiring, what a restructuring book looks like in the published interview corpus, how a guarantee should be sized when revenue is a case, and which covenants bind when the matter is in court. Reported books by practice, including the restructuring cell, are in partner book of business by practice. The 2026 split between filings and hours, read from the company side, is in practice areas ranked by lateral mobility.
The docket grew. The hours that pay a partner did not.
Four published counts. The first three are the market. The fourth is who actually moved.
- 565,759
- U.S. bankruptcy filings in calendar 2025, up 11 percent from 508,953 in 2024. Still below the 757,816 filings of 2019.
- Epiq AACER and ABI, 12 January 2026
- +1%
- commercial Chapter 11 filings in 2025: 7,940, against 7,893 in 2024. The mega-case docket barely moved.
- Epiq AACER and ABI, 12 January 2026
- −0.8%
- bankruptcy billable-hour demand in 2025 versus 2024. Bankruptcy was 2 percent of 2024 hours at reporting firms.
- Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown, Figure 3, January 2026
- A dozen
- restructuring or liability-management leaders changed firms from late 2024 through 18 May 2026.
- Bloomberg Law, Roy Strom, 18 May 2026
Commercial filings of every chapter rose 5 percent in calendar 2025, to 31,810 from 30,201, and total filings remained below the 757,816 recorded in 2019 (Epiq AACER and ABI, 12 January 2026). The hiring Bloomberg Law described on 18 May 2026 was not a rush of traditional Chapter 11 assignments. It was out-of-court liability management and private-credit distress, the work that lets a firm take share without waiting for a petition.
Four buyer lists. They do not hire the same partner.
Retention tables say who already has the work. Lateral announcements say who is trying to take it. A practice head should know which list the firm is on before the brief is written.
Debtor counsel on large cases
BankruptcyData.com, reported by The American Lawyer on 13 March 2026, counted 2025 debtor retentions where the debtor was public or had at least $10 million of assets or liabilities. Kirkland & Ellis had 13, Latham & Watkins 8, Weil 7. Kirkland's Joshua Sussberg was debtor counsel on 9 of those matters. These platforms hire to hold a franchise they already win.
Creditors and liability management
The same 2025 ranking put Gibson Dunn on 7 ad hoc-group retentions, Davis Polk on 6, Paul Hastings and Paul Weiss on 5 each, and Ropes & Gray on 4. Bloomberg Law reported on 18 May 2026 that Octus Intelligence had Gibson Dunn on more restructuring engagements than any other firm in 2025, and that Gibson had hired at least six restructuring partners since the start of 2025.
Official committees
Unsecured-creditors' committee retentions in 2025 ran through a different list. Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones had 15. McDermott Will & Schulte had 10, the highest count among large full-service firms. Brown Rudnick, Lowenstein Sandler and Cole Schotz followed. A committee lawyer and a debtor-side partner are not substitutes.
Lenders, agents and trustees
Holland & Knight led lender, agent and indenture-trustee retentions with 16 cases in 2025, then Norton Rose Fulbright with 15, Foley & Lardner with 14, ArentFox Schiff with 13 and Seward & Kissel with 12. That book often sits with the firm that holds the panel, which is why portability, not the retention count, decides the hire.
Full-service firms that did not already own a distressed desk hired into one. Bloomberg Law reported on 18 May 2026 that roughly a dozen partners with leadership roles in restructuring or liability management had changed firms since late 2024. Three of that leadership group joined Latham & Watkins, which had been building the practice since hiring former Weil partner Ray Schrock in late 2024. Willkie Farr & Gallagher had hired Kirkland partner Ryan Bennett to lead its group in October 2025, then added former Winston & Strawn partners Gregory Gartland and April Doxey, whose work sits in finance and often in a restructuring. Simpson Thacher hired David Nemecek from Kirkland in February 2026 to lead company-side liability management, then more than six further partners by 18 May 2026, including former Kirkland partner Jordan Elkin. Kirkland hired Wachtell partner Joshua Feltman in April 2026.
Gibson Dunn hired Matthew Roose from Ropes & Gray in the same May window. Scott Greenberg, global chair of Gibson Dunn’s business restructuring group, told Bloomberg the creditor-side practice had gone from busy to busier, and that Roose would run deals so the firm could take more of them. Greenberg also said concern that software borrowers would be disrupted had produced some hiring for possible workouts, and that little of that work had started. It starts, he said, when a company hits a liquidity problem or a debt maturity.
Read those moves as a map of open chairs, not as a list of people to call. A debtor platform that already has 13 large retentions is hiring a gap: industry coverage, a geography, or a product (liability management versus a classic Chapter 11). A firm on the committee list is hiring a different résumé. A firm that just lost a practice head is hiring a replacement and a group, and the conflicts profile of the leaver is now the conflicts profile of the seat. The firm-wide search runs the approach. The brief has to name the side of the debt first, or the shortlist mixes people who cannot sit in the same partnership.
The published restructuring median is $2.6 million. Most of it is not highly portable.
These figures are the restructuring cells of Sartori & Partners’ interview corpus, published 12 June 2026. They are what partners reported in lateral conversations. They are not audited collections.
$2.6 million median
Twenty-nine restructuring and insolvency partners reporting in US dollars. The range in that cell is $0.5 million to $31 million. Currencies are not cross-converted. There is no published sterling or euro median for this practice alone.
34 percent highly portable
Of 47 portability assessments in restructuring and insolvency, 34 percent were highly portable, 51 percent partially portable, 11 percent low portability and 4 percent institutional. The 47 and the 29 are different filters: portability was assessed on a wider set than the US-dollar book quotes.
4 percent institutional
Private equity, in the same table, was 26 percent institutional. Restructuring is not a fund franchise. A low institutional share does not make the book safe. Fifty-one percent partial still means the headline overstates what follows.
2,600+ conversations
The practice cells sit inside a corpus of 2,600+ partner conversations. They are not a count of completed searches, and they are not a census of the bankruptcy bar. Partners who discuss a move tend to be partners with something to discuss.
Two partners with the same title are not the same underwrite. Debtor-side mandates often follow the lawyer the board or the sponsor already calls. A lender, agent, or indenture-trustee appointment often stays with the firm that holds the panel. The corpus draws that distinction in the portability class, not in the job title. A debtor-side partner whose mandates follow the lawyer is a different hire from a lender-panel partner with a similar billed total. The classification method, and every practice row, is on partner book of business by practice.
Concentration does the rest of the damage. One Chapter 11, or one liability-management transaction, can be most of a year. A reported book at the $2.6 million median can still be one client that will not repeat. The compensation committee should see the matters, the origination versus the work, and the clients who have already said they will follow. The questionnaire that holds those matters — several years of originations, collections, rates and hours — is the diligence phase of lateral partner recruiting.
Size the guarantee to the matters that move, not to the median.
A compensation guarantee pays the partner if collections miss. In this practice the miss is usually a case that ended, not a slow quarter.
Price the matters in front of you
The published USD median is $2.6 million. The same 29 interviews run from $0.5 million to $31 million. A guarantee set at the median imports the center of a distribution the candidate may not be in.
One matter can be the average
Restructuring revenue is a case, a liability-management deal, or a committee, not an annuity. Several years of originations can be one engagement that will not repeat and one relationship that will. Read the matters before you average them.
Guarantee the portable share
Of 47 portability assessments, 34 percent were highly portable and 51 percent only partial. A partial book guaranteed at the headline number is how the firm overpays. Low portability was 11 percent and institutional was 4 percent.
Restate last year's rates
Worked rates at the average reporting firm rose 7.3 percent in 2025, Thomson Reuters Institute recorded in the 2026 State of the US Legal Market. A book quoted on older rates is not current collections.
The search fee is a separate number, and it is not the partner’s guarantee. Every search is retained. 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. There is no contingency schedule for a partner mandate. A chair who wants the book read matter by matter is paying for that reading, not for a stack of names.
The non-compete is mostly unenforceable. The case is not.
Restrictive covenants are where a restructuring lateral differs from a corporate one. The rules limit what the old firm can do to the lawyer. The court limits what the lawyer can do with the matter.
- I After departure
Model Rule 5.6 bars the non-compete.
ABA Model Rule 5.6(a) provides that a lawyer shall not participate in a partnership, shareholder, operating or employment agreement that restricts the right to practice after the relationship ends, except an agreement about retirement benefits. The client chooses counsel. A blanket non-compete is not the instrument that holds a restructuring book.
- The same rule bars a settlement term that restricts the lawyer's right to practice.
- New York's Rule 5.6 is to the same effect. Nixon Peabody, writing on 21 September 2026, stated that a departing New York partner cannot be contractually stopped from practicing, soliciting former clients, or joining a competitor.
- An English LLP deed is a different instrument. Read the deed that actually binds the candidate. Do not assume Model Rule 5.6 travels with a London restructuring partner.
- II Notice and money
Notice is allowed. A penalty for leaving is not.
ABA Formal Opinion 489 (2019) allows a reasonable notice period so files can be organized and staffing adjusted. The period cannot be fixed without regard to the client, used to punish a competitive departure, or used to delay the matter. If it steers the client's choice of counsel, it can itself violate Rule 5.6.
- New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2025-3, issued 13 August 2025, holds that forfeitable bonuses, conditional loan forgiveness, deferred compensation and capital deductions that deter a lawyer from leaving to compete violate New York Rule 5.6(a).
- The opinion treats the effect in practice, not only the label on the clause.
- A compensation guarantee at the hiring firm does not repair a forfeiture clause at the firm the partner is leaving. Price both before you set a start date.
- III The live docket
The court, not a non-solicit, decides the pending case.
Employment of counsel in a bankruptcy case requires court approval under 11 U.S.C. § 327(a). Counsel must be disinterested and must not hold or represent an interest adverse to the estate. The firm was retained. The partner's resignation letter does not move the debtor, the committee, or the ad hoc group.
- Substitution needs the client's direction and leave of court. A start date that assumes the docket follows in week one is not an underwriting assumption.
- Out-of-court liability-management work has no § 327 order, and the client can move faster. Say which product you are buying.
- Garden leave still has a use: it is the window in which conflicts, the docket and client elections get settled. It is not a substitute for a non-compete the rules will not enforce.
- IV Which side of the debt
The conflict is the capital structure.
A partner who was debtor counsel, committee counsel, or counsel to an ad hoc group can be adverse to the platform you want them to join, including on a deal that never became a Chapter 11 case. Clear the side of the debt before a name circulates and before a guarantee is drafted.
- Section 327(a) disinterestedness is the estate-counsel version of that problem. Creditor-side laterals fail a different conflicts screen, often a current client of the hiring firm.
- The firm-wide conflicts pass, run on a general description before names move, sits on the lateral partner recruiting page. The restructuring question to add is which side of the instrument the candidate has sat on.
- A lender-panel partner and a debtor-side partner can have similar billed hours and incompatible client lists.
Notice, garden leave and client elections still have to be sequenced. That sequencing, for any practice, is part of the firm-wide lateral hire. On a restructuring mandate the extra item is the docket: which matters are in court, which are out-of-court trades, and which clients are free to move on the day the partner resigns.
Firm-wide method for the search. Restructuring facts for the brief.
Questionnaire, conflicts and the first hundred days sit on the firm-wide partner search. Buyers, book, guarantee and covenants are what a restructuring chair decides before that search starts.
Lateral partner recruiting
Mapping, the lateral partner questionnaire, conflicts, covenants and integration for any practice a firm is adding.
Firm-wide partner searchBooks by practice
Banded medians and portability mixes from 2,600+ partner conversations, including the restructuring and insolvency rows.
Book of business by practice2026 practice mobility
Filings up, bankruptcy hours down 0.8 percent. The company-side reading of that split, and why a general counsel may keep the panel.
Practice mobility in 2026Law-firm mandates of every kind are collected on the page for law firms. A restructuring search is briefed the same way as any other partner mandate: the side of the debt, the conflicts you cannot live with, and the book you are willing to guarantee. We map against that brief before a name moves.
What practice heads ask before they guarantee a restructuring book
What book of business should a firm underwrite for a restructuring lateral partner?
In the Sartori & Partners interview corpus published on 12 June 2026, 29 restructuring and insolvency partners reporting in US dollars showed a median book of $2.6 million, on a range of $0.5 million to $31 million. Of 47 portability assessments in that practice, 34 percent were highly portable, 51 percent partially portable, 11 percent low portability and 4 percent institutional. Underwrite the portable share of that partner's matters, not the median. The bands are on partner book of business by practice.
Which law firms were hiring restructuring partners in 2025 and early 2026?
On large 2025 debtor retentions, BankruptcyData.com, reported by The American Lawyer on 13 March 2026, ranked Kirkland & Ellis at 13, Latham & Watkins at 8 and Weil at 7. Committee retentions sat with Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones (15) and McDermott Will & Schulte (10). Bloomberg Law reported on 18 May 2026 that roughly a dozen restructuring or liability-management leaders had changed firms since late 2024, and that Gibson Dunn had hired at least six restructuring partners since the start of 2025.
Can a firm enforce a non-compete against a departing restructuring partner?
ABA Model Rule 5.6(a) bars a partnership agreement that restricts a lawyer's right to practice after departure, other than retirement benefits. New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2025-3 (13 August 2025) treats forfeitable bonuses, deferred compensation and capital deductions that deter a competitive move as violations of New York Rule 5.6(a). A pending bankruptcy case is a separate constraint: employment of counsel needs court approval under 11 U.S.C. § 327(a).
How should a compensation guarantee be set when the book is one or two cases?
Do not anchor it to the $2.6 million median. That figure is the center of a range from $0.5 million to $31 million across 29 US-dollar interviews, and only 34 percent of 47 portability assessments were highly portable. Read originations matter by matter. Worked rates at the average reporting firm rose 7.3 percent in 2025 (Thomson Reuters Institute, 2026 State of the US Legal Market), so a book stated on older rates is not current collections. The questionnaire method is on the firm-wide partner page.
Do higher bankruptcy filings mean restructuring partners are easier to hire?
No. Calendar-year 2025 filings rose 11 percent to 565,759, from 508,953 in 2024 (Epiq AACER and ABI, 12 January 2026). Commercial Chapter 11 filings rose 1 percent, to 7,940 from 7,893. Bankruptcy billable hours at 184 firms fell 0.8 percent in 2025, and bankruptcy was 2 percent of 2024 hours (Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown, Figure 3, January 2026). The lateral demand Bloomberg Law described on 18 May 2026 was out-of-court liability management and private-credit distress.
What conflicts stop a restructuring lateral even when the hours are real?
A partner who was debtor counsel, committee counsel, or counsel to an ad hoc group can be adverse to the firm you want them to join, including on a liability-management deal that never filed. Section 327(a) requires disinterestedness for estate counsel. Clear the side of the capital structure before a name circulates. The general conflicts pass is part of lateral partner recruiting.
A brief, not a commitment
Name the side of the debt. Then we will map who can fill it.
Tell us whether you need debtor, creditor, committee or lender coverage, and what you will not guarantee. We read the book matter by matter, the covenants and the live docket, before you commit. Retained, and limited to this practice.