Law firms · Tax lateral partners
Tax Lateral Partner Recruiter for Practice Chairs
For a managing partner or a tax practice head. The book, the guarantee and the covenants are read for tax before the firm writes an offer. The general lateral method sits on a separate page.
A tax lateral is underwritten on the product, not on the title.
Sartori & Partners runs retained searches for tax lateral partners. The buyer is the managing partner, the chair, or the head of tax. The work is to name the product, test what portion of the book can move, and read the guarantee and the deed before a start date is fixed.
The general sequence for any practice — the brief, the portability file, the lateral partner questionnaire, conflicts, and the first hundred days — is on lateral partner recruiting. That page is the method. It is not repeated here. A tax chair who only needs the firm-wide process should use that page. A chair who needs the tax market, the book and the covenant rules reads the brief below.
Public Law 119-21, signed 4 July 2025, is the US statute a 2026 tax lateral is hired to interpret. Pillar Two reaches companies with more than €750 million in revenue (Tax Foundation glossary). KPMG’s August 2025 note states a 15 percent minimum for groups above that line. Those rules explain why a firm opens a tax search. They are not a headcount.
Of 11 tax lateral partner searches since 2017, a New York full-service firm hired its cross-border corporate tax partner in 14 weeks in 2025. The wider partner record behind the book figures on this site is 2,600+ partner conversations. The fee on this search is the firm’s retained schedule: 25–30 percent of the hire’s total first-year compensation, with 30 percent of the fee paid as a retainer at engagement.
Tax hiring is a short list inside a much larger partner market.
Two 2025 counts describe all practices. One 2024 tracker describes tax partners. They answer different questions, and they are not added together.
- 134
- US tax-partner hires recorded for 2024. The tracker is not exhaustive.
- International Tax Review, 29 January 2025
- 34
- UK tax-partner hires in the same 2024 tracker. Italy recorded 13.
- International Tax Review, 29 January 2025
- 4,152
- Am Law 200 partner joins in the year ending 30 September 2025. All practices.
- Law.com Compass, via LawFuel, 5 March 2026
LawFuel, reporting Law.com Compass on 5 March 2026, put Am Law 200 partner joins at 4,152 in the twelve months ending 30 September 2025, up from 3,473 the year before — nearly 20 percent, after a 3.7 percent rise in the prior hiring year. Firm Prospects, in a release dated 26 January 2026, counted 3,009 partner hires in calendar 2025, a 10 percent increase, inside 13,214 non-entry-level hires. Litigation was 26 percent of those partner hires, corporate 16 percent, intellectual property 8 percent. Tax is not a line on that table.
Geography in the Firm Prospects census is also all-practice. New York recorded 606 partner hires and Washington 469. Government sources contributed 270 partner hires, 9 percent, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office (67) and the Department of Justice (50). That pipeline is not an IRS census. A tax chair who treats 4,152, or 3,009, as tax demand is reading the wrong column.
The tax column is International Tax Review’s Talent Tracker for calendar 2024, published 29 January 2025. ITR says the database is not exhaustive. It recorded 134 tax-partner hires in the United States, 34 in the United Kingdom, 24 in Brazil, 22 in France and 13 in Italy. The US was the largest cell. It was not the only one a cross-border tax group should read.
The 2026 practice-level question — whether tax, as a practice, is hiring — is answered with those cells and with the scarcity note on tax lawyers, low mobility, high market value. Move totals by market, without a tax cut, are on lateral partner hiring statistics for 2026.
A managed US tax group
International Tax Review’s 2024 tracker, published 29 January 2025, put Holland & Knight, Nelson Mullins and McCarter & English at seven US tax-partner hires each, and Akerman at five. That is a group hiring partners into tax, not a general lateral tally.
A global platform, few seats
The same tracker recorded three US tax-partner additions at Baker McKenzie in 2024, including state-and-local tax on a cross-border platform. A global firm can be hiring tax partners without matching that seven-hire cell.
A UK tax platform
Blick Rothenberg made five UK tax-partner hires in 2024, the most ITR recorded in the UK that year. The firm told ITR its tax practice covers corporate and private-client work. The UK cell in the tracker is 34, not five.
A product, then a person
The 2024 moves ITR described were energy-credit tax, state and local tax, corporate tax, and private-client tax. A 2026 brief that says only “tax partner” is not yet a search.
A tax book is often an opinion, a fund, or an audit file.
Size is the second question. The first is whether the revenue is the partner’s or the firm’s. The only published tax-specific band is in euros, and it is small-sample.
On the book-of-business by practice page, the EUR tax sub-sample is five conversations: EUR 0.75 million to EUR 2.5 million, median about EUR 1.75 million. Currencies on that page are not converted. There is no companion US dollar row for tax. A chair who needs a dollar median will not find one in the Law.com Compass report, the Firm Prospects release, or the ITR tracker. We do not supply one.
The last widely cited dollar averages are older and all-practice. The ABA Journal, on 13 January 2021, reported that a lateral-vetting firm had seen average claimed portables rise from $1.2 million before the pandemic to nearly $2.4 million after March 2020. That pair is not a 2026 tax median. It is evidence that claimed books moved sharply, across practices, in one earlier window. A guarantee written on a 2026 pitch should be tested against collections, not against either dollar.
For tax, the portability test is the type of work. An opinion the client bought from the firm’s name, a fund whose tax terms sit in the partnership agreement, and a credit project staffed by a group travel less often than a controversy relationship with one finance officer. Fewer than the whole pitched list will move. The EUR band above is a size check after that cut, not before it.
- i.
M&A and transaction tax
The book is a share of deal flow. It moves when the relationship partner on the acquisition will send the tax questions, and it stays when tax is a staffed step inside the firm’s deal team.
- ii.
International tax and Pillar Two
Tax Foundation’s Pillar Two glossary puts the line above €750 million in revenue. KPMG’s August 2025 note states a 15 percent minimum for groups above that line. The hire is the person who can hold that group, not a generalist with a treaty memo.
- iii.
Controversy and transfer pricing
The file is an audit, a mutual-agreement procedure, or a dollar amount in a provision. Portability is the finance officer who will move the matter, which is a narrower set than a pitched client list.
- iv.
Credits, energy tax, and state and local
ITR reported that Holland & Knight tied a later recruiting push to renewable-energy tax after hiring more than a dozen lawyers from Eversheds Sutherland in November and December 2022. Credit practices have moved as teams. A one-partner pitch needs that history checked.
Controversy as an in-house seat, rather than a firm lateral, is a different search: tax controversy and transfer-pricing disputes counsel.
Anchor the guarantee to collections, not to the pitch.
A compensation guarantee is the firm’s contract with the partner: a minimum for a stated period, reconciled to collections, often repaid if the partner leaves early. It is not the search fee.
The search fee is retained and separate. It is 25–30 percent of the hire’s total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of that fee is paid at engagement and kept if the firm cancels the search. The guarantee is the number the compensation committee defends to the partnership. Those two numbers should not be negotiated as one.
The pitch is a weak anchor. A guarantee that copies the pitch imports the gap between claimed and collected business into the partnership’s accounts. The defensible base is originations and collections on the matters that can actually transfer, after the opinion-versus-relationship cut above. The lateral partner questionnaire is the instrument. How it is used on any practice is set out on the lateral partner recruiting page. Here the only addition is that a tax originations column often mixes firm-brand opinions with personal client work, and only the second belongs in the guarantee.
A clawback for an early departure is an economic term. It becomes an ethics problem when it is drafted so that the partner cannot practice. ABA Model Rule 5.6 allows a restriction tied to retirement benefits. It does not allow a forfeiture whose real function is to stop the lawyer serving the clients who were willing to move. The next section is that rule. The guarantee and the covenant are read in one pass so the firm does not fix a dollar that the deed then makes unreachable.
Collections, not the claim
Build the minimum from originations and collections on matters that survive the portability cut. A claimed book is a pitch, not a base.
Period and payback
State the period, what is forgiven if collections arrive, and what is repaid if the partner leaves. Leave the length as a term the committee sets. No public 2026 survey cited here publishes a standard tax-partner guarantee length.
Separate from the retainer
The firm’s search cost is 25–30 percent of first-year total compensation, retainer 30 percent of that fee. That schedule does not set the partner’s draw, and the partner’s draw does not set the fee.
A tax non-compete is often void. Notice is not.
The clause that delays a tax book is usually notice, a client non-solicit, or conflicts — not a covenant that bars the lawyer from practicing tax.
Model Rule 5.6
ABA Model Rule 5.6(a) bars a partnership, shareholder, operating, or employment agreement that restricts the right to practice after the relationship ends, except an agreement on retirement benefits. Rule 5.6(b) bars a practice restriction inside a settlement of a client controversy.
California Business and Professions Code
Section 16600 voids a contract that restrains a person from a lawful profession, to that extent, subject to the exceptions in the same chapter. Section 16600.5, effective 1 January 2024, makes it unlawful to enter or try to enforce a noncompete that is void under California law, including paper signed outside the state.
What still delays the book
Notice, a non-solicit the admitting jurisdiction will enforce, and conflicts still set the start date. A void non-compete does not make the client list portable on Monday. Read the deed before the guarantee fixes a date.
A UK deed is a different instrument
A partner admitted in England is not governed by Rule 5.6. The restraint is tested under the partnership deed. Do not paste a California conclusion onto a London lateral, and do not paste a London notice period onto a New York one.
ABA Model Rule 5.6(a) says a lawyer shall not participate in offering or making a partnership, shareholders, operating, employment, or similar agreement that restricts the right to practice after termination, except an agreement concerning benefits upon retirement. Rule 5.6(b) covers a restriction tucked into the settlement of a client controversy. The comment to the rule treats the restriction as a limit on the lawyer’s autonomy and on the client’s choice of counsel. A tax partner’s clients are choosing counsel for an audit or a deal. A clause that blocks that choice is the clause Rule 5.6 is aimed at.
California states the same policy as a statute. Business and Professions Code section 16600 provides that, except as the chapter allows, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession is to that extent void. Section 16600.5, added by Senate Bill 699 and effective 1 January 2024, makes it unlawful to enter into or attempt to enforce a noncompete that is void under California law, even where the agreement was signed elsewhere and chooses another state’s law. Freshfields described that reach on 20 October 2025. A tax partner with a California practice is read against that statute, whatever the letterhead on the deed.
None of that clears the book to move on the resignation date. A notice clause can be valid where a non-compete is not. Conflicts on a public company, a fund, or an adverse audit can block the work even after notice runs. The general conflicts method is on the lateral partner page. For tax, the early question is which clients are opinions of the old firm, which are personal to the partner, and which are adverse to a client the new firm already has. That list is sorted before anyone discusses a start date.
Retained, on the tax product, with the general method left intact.
The firm-wide lateral process is applied here to one practice. The figures above are the test.
- I Step 01 — Product
Name the tax product before any approach.
Transaction tax, international and Pillar Two, controversy, credits, state and local, or private client. A brief that says “tax partner” produces a list, not a shortlist. Public Law 119-21 and the €750 million Pillar Two line tell us which product the client work actually is.
- II Step 02 — Market
Use the tax count, and label every other count.
The full-year tax-partner record we will cite is ITR’s 2024 tracker: 134 in the US, 34 in the UK, 13 in Italy, not exhaustive. The 4,152 and the 3,009 are Am Law 200 partner joins on two different calendars, all practices. They stay in the memorandum as context. They are not the target list.
- III Step 03 — Book and guarantee
Cut institutional revenue out of the guarantee.
The EUR tax band — EUR 0.75 million to EUR 2.5 million, median about EUR 1.75 million, five conversations — is the published size check. The pitch is haircut before the minimum is written. Opinions, fund terms and group credits are identified matter by matter.
- IV Step 04 — Deed
Read Rule 5.6, section 16600, and the notice clause.
Where the partner is admitted decides which restraint is void and which delay is real. A start date is not offered until that read is done. Integration after arrival follows the lateral partner process. It is not a separate tax ritual.
Partners weighing a move, rather than firms hiring, start at the partner advisory. Hiring firms brief the search from contact or a direct conversation.
The tax brief sits next to the general partner search.
The general page carries the method. The book page carries the practice bands. The tax market note carries the hiring question.
Lateral partner recruiting
The firm-wide method: brief, portability, questionnaire, conflicts and integration. Not restated here.
Partner recruitingBook of business by practice
The EUR tax sub-sample and the other practice bands. Size without a portability cut is only half the underwrite.
Books by practiceTax lawyers in 2026
Low mobility and the 2024 tax-partner hire count. The practice question, distinct from an in-house head of tax.
Tax marketAll-practice move counts, kept off this page’s tax column, are in lateral partner hiring statistics for 2026. Law-firm mandates other than tax start from work for law firms.
What tax practice chairs ask before they commit
What does a tax lateral partner recruiter do?
A tax lateral partner recruiter is retained by a managing partner or a tax practice chair to find a partner for a defined tax product and to test the book, the guarantee and the covenants before an offer. The general method for any practice is lateral partner recruiting. This mandate is the tax brief only.
Which firms hired tax partners?
International Tax Review’s 2024 Talent Tracker, published 29 January 2025 and not exhaustive, recorded 134 US tax-partner hires, 34 in the UK, 24 in Brazil, 22 in France and 13 in Italy. Holland & Knight, Nelson Mullins and McCarter & English each recorded seven US tax-partner hires. Akerman recorded five. Baker McKenzie recorded three US additions. Blick Rothenberg recorded five UK tax-partner hires. Those are tax hires. They are not the Am Law 200 all-practice totals.
How large is a tax partner’s book?
The published EUR tax sub-sample on the book-of-business by practice page is EUR 0.75 million to EUR 2.5 million, median about EUR 1.75 million, from five conversations. No US dollar median for a portable tax book is in the 2025–2026 hiring reports cited here. An ABA Journal interview on 13 January 2021 reported that a lateral-vetting firm’s average claimed portables had risen from $1.2 million to nearly $2.4 million after March 2020. That dollar pair is all-practice and five years old.
Can the firm enforce a non-compete against a departing tax partner?
In a jurisdiction that has adopted ABA Model Rule 5.6, a partnership agreement may not restrict the right to practice after departure, except for retirement benefits. California Business and Professions Code section 16600 voids a restraint on a lawful profession, and section 16600.5 (effective 1 January 2024) reaches an attempt to enforce a void noncompete, including an agreement signed outside California. Notice and conflicts can still delay the book. The admitting jurisdiction decides which clause survives.
How is this different from a general lateral partner search?
A general lateral can be any practice. A tax search starts from the product — transaction tax, international tax, controversy, credits, or private client — and from a book that is often an opinion, a fund, or an audit rather than a relationship list. Move counts are kept separate: Law.com Compass counted 4,152 Am Law 200 partner joins in the year ending 30 September 2025, and Firm Prospects counted 3,009 partner hires in calendar 2025. Neither table is a tax census. The tax count on the public record for a full year is the ITR tracker.
What does the firm pay for the search?
The 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 firm cancels. That fee is not the partner’s compensation guarantee. The guarantee is the firm’s contract with the partner and is anchored to collections, not to the pitched book.
The figures, with the documents.
Sources
10 references- ITR Talent Tracker Annual Review: three firms share top spot amid US recruitment spree internationaltaxreview.com ↗
- Big Law’s Hiring Boom — Am Law 200 firms snapped up 20% more lateral partners in 2025 lawfuel.com ↗
- Government-to-partner pipeline powers partner hiring to a five-year high prnewswire.com ↗
- Law firms should not rush lateral hiring, due diligence expert says abajournal.com ↗
- ABA Model Rule 5.6 — Restrictions on Right to Practice americanbar.org ↗
- California Business and Professions Code section 16600 law.justia.com ↗
- Non-competes in California: a practical guide freshfields.com ↗
- OECD Pillar Two (global minimum tax) taxfoundation.org ↗
- Is your company ready for Pillar Two’s global minimum tax? kpmg.com ↗
- H.R. 1, 119th Congress (Public Law 119-21) congress.gov ↗
Clocks are not combined. The ITR tracker is not a census. The EUR tax band is five conversations. The $1.2 million and $2.4 million averages are a 2021 all-practice report.
A brief, not a commitment
Name the tax product. Then test the book.
Tell us which tax work the firm cannot staff. We map that product, separate institutional revenue from the book that can move, and read the guarantee and the deed before you set a start date. Retained.