Real Estate Report May 2026
Q2 2025 through Q2 2026 · 1,103 Tracked Moves
By the Numbers
The real estate lateral market recorded 1,103 attorney moves from Q2 2025 through the early weeks of Q2 2026. The market is geographically diverse—more so than corporate or banking—with meaningful activity across New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, and Florida. Purchase and sale, finance, and leasing work drive the core of the specialty data, while development and construction are growing rapidly as newly acquired practice areas following a move.
Firms Moving Together
Group moves in real estate tend to be smaller in scale than in corporate or litigation but more concentrated by source firm. The largest single-month moves were driven by targeted team acquisitions, with Polsinelli appearing multiple times across different months as the most consistent group-hire firm in the dataset.
Sidley Austin — May 2025: The largest single group move in the real estate dataset, with 9 attorneys joining in one month from a range of source firms.
Seyfarth Shaw — June 2025: 8 attorneys joined in one month, reflecting a targeted build-out of Seyfarth's real estate practice heading into the second half of 2025.
Holland & Knight — April 2026: 6 attorneys joined, consistent with the firm's pattern of steady real estate expansion across multiple markets.
Mayer Brown — November 2025: 6 attorneys arrived in a concentrated fall intake.
Polsinelli — July 2025, December 2025, March 2026: Polsinelli recorded group moves of 5–6 attorneys across three separate months, the only firm in the dataset with multiple consecutive quarter group intakes—a signal of sustained, strategic real estate hiring.
Who Got a New Title
455 of 1,103 real estate attorneys (41.3%) changed titles with their move. The Associate ↔ Attorney exchange is the most distinctive pattern in real estate—60 associates moved to attorney titles and 56 attorneys moved to associate titles, reflecting the variety of title conventions across the firm spectrum from boutiques and regional firms to Am Law platforms. Upward movement to counsel and senior counsel was also consistent throughout the period.
Most Common Title Transitions
Green = promotion · Gold = in-house or cross-title shift · Red = title reduction (often reflects titling differences across firm types, not a change in seniority)
In-House & Government
120 real estate attorneys moved to non-law-firm positions during the tracked period. The in-house destination list is distinctly different from corporate or banking—rather than financial institutions and PE firms, real estate practitioners are moving directly to developers, REITs, homebuilders, and real estate operating companies. This reflects the practice's deep integration with the real estate industry itself.
In-House Destination Types
The in-house real estate market is more fragmented than in other practice areas, with no single employer absorbing multiple attorneys at scale. Developers, homebuilders, REITs, and energy companies each hire one or two attorneys at a time as they build out their legal teams. For real estate practitioners considering an in-house move, the opportunity set is broad but requires direct outreach to industry employers rather than relying on visible hiring patterns.
When Attorneys Move
The class of 2022 led all movement, followed closely by 2021 and 2023. Real estate shows notably stronger partner and counsel activity relative to its dataset size compared to other practice areas—partners from classes as early as 2013 and 2014 are visible in the data, reflecting the longer career arc of real estate practitioners who build deep market and client relationships that remain portable well into their careers.
Classes 2020–2023 account for 568 moves—51.5% of all tracked real estate lateral activity. But unlike corporate or banking, real estate shows meaningful movement from classes as senior as 2013–2016, where partner and counsel mobility remains active. Real estate is one of the few practice areas where a 10+ year practitioner is still a competitive lateral candidate.
What Practitioners Work On—and What They Pick Up
Purchase and sale, finance, and leasing are the foundational specialties of the real estate lateral market, appearing across both arrival and departure profiles at high volume. Development and construction are the fastest-growing newly acquired specialties, consistent with active project pipelines and infrastructure activity across multiple markets. Affordable housing also grew meaningfully as a post-move specialty, reflecting increased state and federal emphasis on housing production.
Top Specialties at Arrival Firms
New Specialties Picked Up After Move
Litigation appearing as both a top arrival specialty (196) and a newly gained specialty (+84) is a real estate market distinction. Real estate disputes—construction defect, landlord/tenant, land use challenges—are generating enough volume that firms are actively hiring attorneys who can handle both transactional and contentious real estate work. Attorneys who carry both a transactional and dispute resolution profile are among the most competitive candidates in the current market.
Where People Moved From and To
Real estate is the most geographically distributed practice area in the dataset. New York leads in volume, but the gap between New York and secondary markets is smaller here than in corporate or banking. Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, and Tampa all represent functioning lateral markets with consistent movement—a reflection of real estate's direct connection to regional economic activity and development cycles.
Top Departure Cities
Top Arrival Cities
Washington DC and Los Angeles are both net receivers in real estate—DC with 20 arrivals versus 10 departures shown in the location data, and LA gaining ground across the full period. Florida's real estate market produced 109 total moves—third in the state rankings—driven by active commercial and residential development cycles across Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. Texas and Illinois also represent substantial markets with consistent bidirectional movement.
When the Market Moved
Q1 2026 was the peak quarter with 311 moves, consistent with the broader lateral market pattern of January through March producing the highest activity. Q3 2025 was unusually strong at 284, suggesting that real estate hiring did not slow through the summer as significantly as in prior years—likely reflecting firms filling seats in anticipation of an improving transaction environment heading into year-end.
Counsel: 6
Associates: 150
Other: 15
Counsel: 16
Associates: 240
Other: 24
Counsel: 14
Associates: 216
Other: 15
Counsel: 15
Associates: 276
Other: 16
Counsel: 5
Associates: 68
Other: 5
Counsel-level movement was notably consistent—14–16 counsel moves per full quarter—which is higher relative to dataset size than in banking or corporate. This reflects the real estate market's reliance on mid-level practitioners who carry both transactional depth and client relationships, making them highly sought after across the firm spectrum.
Who Hired Most
Who Hired Most
Polsinelli's position at the top of the real estate hiring list—sustained across multiple quarters through consecutive group moves—represents the most deliberate real estate practice build in the dataset. Greenberg Traurig's consistent second-place position reflects the breadth of its national real estate platform across 20+ offices. The presence of regional and mid-market firms—Allen Matkins, Fox Rothschild, Nixon Peabody, Womble Bond Dickinson—alongside Am Law leaders is distinctive to real estate and underscores how active the market is beyond the top tier.
Real Estate Open Positions
140 active real estate associate openings are currently in the market. New York leads city-level demand, but Washington DC, Chicago, and Dallas each carry a meaningful share. The 3–5 year experience range is the most sought-after, though real estate roles skew slightly more senior than other practice areas—average maximum years requested sits above 6, reflecting client relationship demands unique to real estate practice.
Top Firms Hiring RE Associates
Top Cities for RE Openings
Real Estate Specialties in Active Demand
The open position data reinforces the specialty movement data: purchase and sale, finance, and leasing are the core of current demand, and firms want candidates who carry all three rather than just one. Greenberg Traurig leads all firms in open real estate roles by a significant margin, with 14 active positions spread across its national office network. Gibson Dunn's presence in the open position list—6 roles—reflects a more targeted build at the Am Law end of the spectrum where candidate profile is more selective. For practitioners in the 3–7 year range with broad transactional real estate experience, the current open position landscape is as active as any point in the past two years.
What the Movement Tells Us
The real estate lateral market is recovering. 1,103 moves over four quarters reflects a market that has absorbed the interest rate disruption of 2022–2023 and is now reactivating as transaction volume returns. The Q1 2026 peak of 311 moves—combined with Q3 2025's unusually strong showing of 284—signals that firms are not waiting for a full market recovery before adding real estate headcount. They are positioning now for a transaction environment they expect to improve.
Polsinelli's sustained group hiring across three separate quarters is the most deliberate practice-building move in the real estate dataset. It reflects a firm executing a clear strategy to expand its national real estate platform, not opportunistically filling vacancies. For candidates evaluating firms that are committed to growing their real estate practice, Polsinelli's pattern of consistent intake stands apart from firms that hire in bursts and go quiet.
The geographic distribution of this market is one of its most important characteristics. Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, and Tampa all produced 20+ moves in each direction—volumes that support genuine candidate optionality outside of New York. For real estate practitioners who want to relocate or expand their geographic profile, the data supports the case that strong platforms exist in most major Sun Belt and growth markets. Washington DC and Los Angeles are both net receivers of real estate talent, suggesting active expansion in both markets.
The counsel-level activity throughout the year is worth noting. Real estate counsel moves—14 to 16 per full quarter—are elevated relative to the practice area's total dataset size. This reflects the premium that real estate practices place on mid-level attorneys who can manage client relationships, run closings independently, and mentor junior associates. Attorneys in that 5–8 year range with deep transactional experience and demonstrated client contact are among the most sought-after candidates in real estate right now.
Development and construction growing as newly acquired specialties post-move tracks directly with market conditions. Permitting backlogs are clearing in several major markets, infrastructure investment is generating new project pipelines, and housing production is accelerating under state-level mandates in California, New York, and elsewhere. Attorneys who can handle the full development cycle—from land use and entitlements through construction and eventual P&S—are in genuine short supply relative to demand.
The affordable housing specialty growth—28 attorneys added it after their move—is a signal worth watching. As federal and state programs continue to direct capital toward housing production, the legal work supporting those transactions is becoming a distinct and growing subspecialty within real estate. Firms with dedicated affordable housing practices are actively building, and candidates who have worked on tax credit transactions, HUD financing, or public-private development deals carry a credential that is increasingly valued across both the Am Law and regional firm markets.