Corporate Lawyers Cash in on ‘Tsunami’ as Firms Target Partners

Stock rallies. Major mergers. Private capital.

It’s a flush time for top transactional lawyers, as firms seize on AI-fueled economic growth and Wall Street lives like it’s the ‘90s.

“There’s a tsunami of activity that we’re experiencing borne of these inflection moments in the markets,” said Baker Botts Managing Partner Danny David, who cited data center work as a major driver of firm activity. “When there is an incredible new dynamo of technology, law firms must act.”

Carpe diem. In a Wall Street-versus-Main Street market—with the latter bogged down by pessimistic consumer sentiment and stubborn inflation—law firms are embracing the former.

Banking and finance was the top sector that firms said they were targeting for growth in Bloomberg Law’s Leading Law Firms survey. That was followed by technology and energy, two areas linked to a national data center boom.

Read more: See which firms came out on top overall in Bloomberg Law’s Leading Law Firms.

Over the past year, firms have staffed up with experienced banking, finance, M&A, corporate, and securities lawyers, the survey data show. The polled firms, combined, hired about 580 lateral partners across those sectors—dwarfing the roughly 417 lateral hires the firms tapped for litigation.

“Transactional practices are on fire, while others might be taking a back seat,” said Rose Corbett, a managing director at legal recruiter Macrae. “The M&A markets are back, and there’s a robust deal flow for law firms at the top of the food chain.”

This focus on transactional law is a shift from recent years. In the 2025 Leading Law Firms survey, litigation led other practices as the target growth area among the nearly 100 firms surveyed. Legal leaders called litigation recession-proof and doubled down on it, nervously eyeing an unsure economic and political picture.

But the second Trump administration has “made M&A easier,” said John Morley, a Yale Law professor who studies law firm management. Beyond regulatory policy set by the administration, he added, “capital markets are strong, the stock market’s booming, and those conditions are big drivers” of legal transactional work.

Big Firms Staff Up

The M&A picture has tended to reward those at the top, buoyed by big deals like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI tie-up. While deal count—the total number of transactions—rose in 2025, per a Bloomberg Law analysis, deal volume—the total value of the transactions—rose more sharply.

For large corporate firms like Paul Hastings, “the level of M&A activity over the last 12 to 18 months has been extraordinary,” said Eduardo Gallardo, the firm’s M&A co-chair. “Globally, it’s driven by multiple sectors, from industrials to technology and AI. There’s high volume, but it’s also the size and complexity of the deals that are main drivers of M&A activity at law firms.”

Paul Hastings made seven lateral partner hires across its M&A and securities practices and picked up two litigation partners, with other laterals going to different practice areas. In a signal of the hot market for top dealmakers, Paul Hastings last year poached M&A partner Eric Schiele from Kirkland & Ellis, a coup for the firm.

Wall Street firm Paul Weiss—which recently elevated top dealmaker Scott Barshay to firm chairman—made 24 lateral partner hires across its banking, finance, corporate, and M&A practices, the latest in the firm’s push over the past few years to lodge itself in the M&A and private equity spaces. That’s compared to six hires in litigation.

Top capital markets practices have also benefited from big IPOs, like SpaceX’s record-breaking initial public offering on June 12.

Even firms making big investments in litigation, like Kirkland & Ellis, shored up their transactional practices, too. Kirkland hired 32 lateral banking, finance, and M&A partners, along with 56 lateral litigation partners.

Private Credit, Sovereign Wealth

The embrace of transactional law extends beyond Wall Street. Lateral partner hiring within the corporate and finance sectors exceeded the rate of litigation hires at firms including Baltimore’s Miles & Stockbridge, Cleveland-founded Squire Patton Boggs, and Chicago-founded Mayer Brown.

These firms are hitting different parts of the transactional market.

Miles & Stockbridge has a team in DC of real estate finance lawyers focused on deals involving government-sponsored loans, Suzzanne W. Decker, the firm’s chief growth officer, said.

Squire Patton Boggs has developed a focus on alternative capital providers, such as sovereign wealth funds and family offices, in spots around the globe like Dubai, Singapore, and Azerbaijan, said Jim Barresi, the firm’s financial services practice leader.

Mayer Brown has leaned into private equity and private credit deals, according to Fred Fisher, the firm’s head of private capital.

There’s a risk of shifting too much into transactional law, as economists warn of a potential AI bubble burst, and future administrations could set tighter regulatory policies that slow M&A growth.

“Things are bound to change if the administration changes,” said Corbett, the legal recruiter. “You’re still going to need both general transactional practices and litigation practices, always, and firms will have to pivot at some point if they’ve overinvested in one.”

Firm leaders emphasized they’re trying not to simply react to macroeconomic trends.

“Our strategy over the past handful of years has been trying to grow into our areas of strength that we think are going to grow at a macro level,” Fisher said. “We are acting strategically as we invest into the lateral market.”

As Danny David, the Baker Botts Managing Partner, put it: “What goes up must come down.” In the meantime, he said, “activity will not wait.”

—Boebin Park contributed