Law Firm Partner Hiring - Churn and the Illusion of Growth
- edobrien92
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
The London market for US law firms has entered a more mature and competitive phase. What were once small, client-service outposts have evolved into established operations, with some offices now as big in some cases bigger than established leading UK headquartered international firms. Alongside these are smaller/mid sized platforms pursuing expansion, contributing to heightened competition for lateral talent. As the market matures, increased mobility among partners has become a defining feature, resulting in greater churn and a more fluid competitive landscape.
In 2025, US firms in London collectively made 255 lateral partner hires, the highest number ever recorded. This represents an 8% increase on 2024 and a striking 65% increase compared with post-Covid hiring levels in 2022. On the face of it, this looks like an unambiguous growth story. A closer examination, however, suggests a far more complex – and potentially zero-sum market dynamic.
Scale inevitably drives movement
There are now over 80 US law firms with a presence in London, and between January 2022 and January 2026 the total number of partners across those firms increased from approximately 2,000 to 2,400. As partnerships grow, so too does partner attrition. More partners means more retirements, more moves in-house, and more lateral departures – all of which must be replaced simply to stand still.
This reality must be taken into account when looking at lateral hiring - the increase in lateral recruitment is not solely about expansion; a significant proportion is about replacement.
Not all US firms are competing in the same way
The US firm cohort in London is far from homogenous. Broadly, we categorised it into three groups:
Satellite offices: firms with small London offices primarily servicing US clients, who have not made much growth over the years.
Merged platforms: firms that achieved instant critical mass through mergers with established UK firms and therefore have less need for growth lateral hiring.
Growth-driven firms: US firms with a meaningful but still developing London footprint, who are using lateral hiring as tool for expansion and market entrenchment.
It is this third group that is reshaping the market and the group that we will focus on.
A sharper focus on the firms driving the market
We sought to isolate and define this third group by reviewing all US firms with a London presence and excluding (except for white shoe firms) those with 15 or fewer partners between 2022 and 2026. We then also excluded firms who fell into the merged platforms category.
This reduced the population from 80 firms to 40. (From here, we will refer to this group of firms as the US growth firms).
Despite comprising only half of the US firm population in London, since 2022 these 40 firms have consistently represented around 75% of all US firm partners in London and made at least 80% of the lateral partner hires by US firms.
Among this cohort, lateral partner hiring rose from 123 hires in 2022 to 210 in 2025 – a 70% increase. When viewed as a proportion of total partners, hires increased from 8.5% to 12%, a more modest but still meaningful rise.
Growth ambitions are evident. As a whole this group of firms grew in partner numbers by 23%. however the growth was not necessarily uniform.
13 firms grew the size of their London office by over 50%, 10 increased partner headcount by 20-50% whilst five firms saw their London footprint stay static or shrink.
Churn is rising – and accelerating
Growth through lateral hiring is only half the story. Partner departures have risen sharply.
In 2022, collectively 130 partners left the US Growth firms. Of those 60% moved to partner roles at other firms, 18% effectively retired from partnership, 18% moved in-house, to the Bar, or other pursuits and 4% relocated to other offices in their firms network.
By 2025, annual partner departures had risen to 221, with 67% now moving laterally to other firms. More telling still is the departure rate as a percentage of total partners: this increased from 9% in 2022 to 12.5% in 2025. This suggests that the London market for US growth firms is no longer simply growing; it is churning.
A shift in where partners are coming from
Historically, US firms in London built their platforms by hiring from the Magic Circle, Silver Circle and large UK international firms. While this remains part of the picture, it is no longer the dominant trend.
In 2022, 44% of lateral partner hires by the US Growth Firms came from UK international or global firms. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 30%. However, over the same period, the proportion of hires coming from other US firms seeking to grow their London presence rose from 37% to 60%. US firms are now increasingly hiring from each other.
The illusion of growth
The potential for partner hiring figures to create a misleading impression of growth is most clearly illustrated by the experiences of Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Hastings.
Between 2022 and 2025, they were the two most active firms in the London lateral market, making 84 and 42 lateral partner hires respectively. While these hiring numbers might have suggested continued expansion, both firms simultaneously experienced the high levels of partner attrition, with 58 departures at Kirkland and 34 at Paul Hastings.
When retirements, in-house moves and other exits are included, total partner leavers rise to approximately 100 at Kirkland and just over 40 at Paul Hastings. Without internal promotions, Kirkland’s London partnership would have contracted and Paul Hasting's would have been static.
This is not a criticism of either firm. Large partnerships are actively managed, and promotions are just as much a part of firms growth plans and long-term succession planning and strategic balance as lateral hiring. Rather, these examples illustrate a broader point: headline lateral hiring figures, viewed in isolation, can give a misleading impression of growth. Once attrition and internal dynamics are taken into account, lateral hiring often functions as much as a mechanism for renewal and continuity as it does for expansion.
It is against this backdrop that competition between US firms in London has intensified, with an increasing concentration on a single area of strategic priority. Private Capital
Private capital: growth strategy or zero-sum competition?
Across the London market, US firms are converging on the same objective: building premium private capital platforms capable of advising private equity sponsors, private credit providers, infrastructure investors and alternative asset managers across the full investment cycle. Given the resilience of private capital through economic cycles, and London’s role as a gateway for global capital into Europe, the Middle East and beyond, this focus is both rational and inevitable.
US firms also benefit from a clear structural advantage. Their deep-rooted relationships with US-based sponsors, credit funds and institutional investors allow London offices to connect directly into transatlantic deal flows. For many firms, London is not a standalone market but an extension of their US private capital engine.
Yet this advantage is also intensifying competition. There is a limited pool of partners in London with established sponsor relationships, proven origination capability and experience operating at the top end of the private capital market. As more US firms prioritise the same strategy, they are increasingly sourcing talent from each other rather than from the UK market. The result is a relatively closed system in which partners circulate between firms, often driven by escalating compensation and increasingly narrow strategic differentiation.
This helps explain why lateral hiring volumes can remain high without delivering commensurate net growth across the market. In many cases, firms are not creating new capacity but redistributing existing capability within the US firm cohort. The competitive contest in the London market is no longer primarily between US firms and the Magic Circle, but among US firms themselves, all seeking to anchor the similar private capital relationships in London.
The strategic challenge, therefore, is whether this arms race produces lasting advantage. As firms build broadly similar private capital offerings and compete for a relatively limited pool of specialist talent, the balance may shift: retention could become at least as strategically important as lateral recruitment in determining long-term success.
As competition intensifies, the ability to provide stability, long-term opportunity and a clear platform for partners to grow their practices may increasingly influence outcomes. In that context, financial incentives alone may not be sufficient to secure sustained advantage. Firms may now find that a greater emphasis on collective platform strength supports stability and continuity. Financial incentives will remain important, but they may sit alongside other considerations, such as the depth of the bench, and the extent to which partners see opportunity in building practices within a broader, integrated framework.
Over time, these considerations may prove as important as hiring momentum in determining which firms are able to consolidate their position. The firms most likely to succeed will be those that can offer something more enduring: depth beyond individual rainmakers, credible succession planning, genuinely integrated global platforms and the ability to translate US private capital strength into consistently profitable European work.
Absent that, the principal beneficiaries of this cycle may not be the firms themselves, but the relatively small group of partners with the relationships, continuing to move from platform to platform as competition intensifies.
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