By the Numbers

5,024

PE matters tracked at the top-ranked firm over 3 years

+52%

Largest PE practice headcount growth seen at any elite firm

24

Law firms ranked by PE matter volume and lawyer deployment

–13%

PE lawyer decline in Hong Kong over the same period

Matter Intelligence

Who is Actually Doing The Work

Pirical's matter-level data cross-references publicly disclosed engagements across PE-adjacent practices against the top 20 PE organisations. The ratio between matters and lawyers is analytically meaningful on its own: high matter-to-lawyer ratios reflect deal intensity and practice concentration, not just headcount scale.

The gap between first and second place is larger than the gap between second and twenty-fourth.

Ranks 11–24 are in the full report — sign up below to get the complete table, including Sidley, Skadden, A&O Shearman, Gibson Dunn, Davis Polk, and more.

Three-Year Talent Movement

Who is Building, Who is Bleeding

Headcount tells you market position. Lateral movement tells you strategic intent. Pirical tracked all PE and capital markets lawyer joiners and leavers from January 2023 to January 2026. The net figures below expose firms whose joiner numbers mask significant underlying instability.

Biggest Net Gain

+79 net lawyers

One elite PE firm — historically selective, not known for lateral hiring at scale — ran 149 joiners against 70 leavers. That is a deliberate capacity build, not replacement churn. It has received remarkably little market attention.

The Treadmill Problem

88 in, 102 out

One firm was simultaneously recruiting aggressively and losing talent at high volume — running a replacement treadmill at precisely the wrong point in the cycle for its core practice.

Biggest Net Loss

–52 net lawyers

The most troubling signal for an established PE practice in the dataset. 103 departures against 51 joiners over three years. This is not a firm people typically flee.

Where PE Legal Work is Moving

Pirical's office-level data identifies the fastest-growing and fastest-contracting markets for PE legal work. Nashville and Austin reflect the migration of PE portfolio companies into lower-cost US jurisdictions.

Berlin and Munich point to real growth in German Mittelstand succession transactions. And one major market is contracting faster than most practitioners acknowledge.

Most Significant Contraction: Hong Kong: –13%

From 895 to 775 PE-adjacent lawyers. Both the absolute scale of the decline and its concentration in PE practices confirms what practitioners have reported anecdotally: geopolitical friction and reduced cross-border deal flow have materially reduced demand for Hong Kong-based PE legal capacity.

Practice-Level Trends

The Split That Aggregate Numbers Hide

Capital markets headcount looks broadly flat across the Pirical dataset. But flat aggregates can conceal a meaningful divergence. Fund formation has been the most resilient PE-adjacent legal revenue line across this cycle. Equity capital markets work has been directly squeezed by IPO market suppression.

Analysts who cite flat capital markets headcount as evidence of stability are missing this split entirely.

+7%

Corporate – Investment Funds headcount growth, 2023–2026

–6%

Capital Markets – Equity headcount change, same period

–0.3%

Aggregate capital markets figure that hides both trends above

Get the Complete Analysis

The full report includes the complete 24-firm matter and headcount ranking, the top 10 individual law firm–PE client pairings, the software repricing section, the PE ownership question, and full methodology.