The Legal Benchmarking Group’s core titles IFLR+, ITR+ and Managing IP+ launched exclusive interactive databases of partner moves earlier this year.
The Talent Tracker databases, available on each of the websites, enable readers from the financial legal, legal tax and intellectual property spaces to access insight on talent movements and recruitment trends, keep track of competitors’ hiring activities and make informed strategic decisions.
Subscribers of each brand can automatically filter the databases by clicking on jurisdiction and practice area – allowing them to tailor the tracker specifically to their own interests.
The trackers have collated reported partner moves since the beginning of January 2023, and the editorial teams at each brand have also analysed the data from the first two quarters of 2024. The results were staggering.
IFLR+
Of the 452 global financial legal hires tracked in the first quarter of 2024 by IFLR+’s Talent Tracker, 176 (40%) specialised in M&A.
Notably, 84 hires focused exclusively on M&A, while others combined their expertise with private equity (50 hires), banking and finance (16 hires), and capital markets (11 hires).
Data for the second quarter of 2024 showed that besides the dominant areas of private equity and M&A, firms were strengthening in financial services regulatory (FSR) as well as banking and finance.
There were 35 banking and finance hires globally in Q2, with 19 from the US, six from Western Europe and four from Asia-Pacific. In Q1, the figure was 85 globally, with 32 from the US.
Q2 saw a total of 28 FSR hires globally, including 14 in the US, seven in Western Europe and two in Asia-Pacific. In Q1, the global figure was 78, with 41 from the US.
This diversification reflects a broader strategic approach to capture a wider array of business opportunities driven by increasing financing needs and tightening regulatory oversight.
Overall, for the first six months of 2024, the US, UK and Germany were the top countries with the most lateral partner moves.
Of the firms making the most lateral partner moves globally, Dentons (30), Paul Hastings (29) and DLA Piper (27) were the leaders of the pack in terms of joiners.
The firms that lost the most partners to rivals were Paul Hastings (22), Linklaters (20) and Kirkland & Ellis (20).
ITR+
As far as the legal tax space is concerned, the US dominated tax lateral partner moves for the first quarter of 2024, according to ITR+’s Talent Tracker.
While no one firm dominated the hiring in the US, New York-based outfit Mintz & Gold and global legal powerhouse Kirkland & Ellis topped the charts with two hires each.
If there is one identifiable trend among US hiring in terms of practice area, it is a pronounced slant towards specialist transactional work.
Aside from general corporate taxation work (13), transactional tax was comfortably the most represented specialism in US hires with six such appointments.
Data from the second quarter showed that France’s lateral hiring market for tax professionals was also quite active, with the country maintaining its position as the jurisdiction with the second highest number of hires.
While there was a demand for a variety of specialisms in France’s energetic market, general corporate taxation expertise was the most sought-after skill according to ITR+’s data.
Five of the seven French hires for the quarter covered general corporate work in their practices.
Other specialisms in demand were private client, transfer pricing and transactional tax.
Looking back at the first half of 2024, the US was the most active market for lateral partner moves, followed by France and the UK.
Dentons (5) and Mayer Brown (4) topped the list of firms that snagged lateral partners from rivals, while KPMG (9) and PwC (6) lost the most number of leaders.
Managing IP+
The IP world showed a similar trend to tax in the first quarter.
The US was a particularly buoyant market, with several clusters of lawyers moving together, or shortly after each other, to new ventures, according to Managing IP+’s Talent Tracker.
For instance, Paul Hastings lured a team of six partners from Allen & Overy and three partners switched from McKool Smith to Spencer Fane in Q1.
While the US had the highest number of moves in the first few months of 2024, partners were also jumping ship globally. In Asia, South Korea-based Yulchon had a successful first quarter, bringing on Mun Hui Kim from Jipyong and JongCheol Lee from an in-house role at Samsung.
In the second quarter, Yulchon maintained that momentum by hiring veteran IP and media lawyer Chunghwan Choi from Lee & Ko.
Yulchon’s hiring focus indicates a broader trend of full-service firms in Asia and elsewhere aggressively trying to expand their IP practices.
Just like Yulchon, India’s largest full-service firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas brought in veteran Revant Mathur to support its growing IP transactions practice.
The move shows that firms that have traditionally been more focused on corporate and transactional work have felt the need to strengthen their IP practice as intangibles become an integral part of many corporate deals.
The appeal of life sciences work, flexible pricing models, and the opportunity to work with stronger patent litigation teams were also factors that pushed IP partners to jump ship in the second quarter.
Overall, cementing its status as the world’s largest legal market, the US was by far and away the most active jurisdiction for lateral partner moves in the first half of 2024, followed by China and France.
Burns & Levinson (7) and Allen & Overy (6) saw the most partners depart their firms during the first six months of the year, while ArentFox Shiff (7) and Paul Hastings (6) attracted the most.
