The war for tax talent: three hires in one week explain the legal market's October

Three senior tax hires in a single week have drawn the map of the Spanish legal market's autumn: Remedios García joins Toda & Nel-lo from Gómez-Acebo & Pombo; KPMG Abogados signs Héctor Ortega from PwC for the Canary Islands; and Ontier adds Bernadette Accili to build a tax department in Italy. Three different operations, one shared driver: tax advice has become the practice that opens the door to recurring client relationships.

Why tax, and why now

The pressure on tax talent has several engines acting at once. The first is the regulatory load: changes in business taxation, post-Pillar Two international taxation and growing inspection activity have turned the tax specialist into the piece that unlocks recurring advice. The second is structural: tax is the area where a hire's return is most visible, because clients follow their trusted adviser more easily than in other practices. The third is territorial: as the Canary Islands case shows, own-regime specialisations trade at a premium when local work demands permanent presence.

The three moves also illustrate three distinct recruitment formulas. Toda & Nel-lo offers full partnership and a practice project to a professional who held counsel positions at a large firm; KPMG Abogados captures consolidated territorial management from another Big Four; Ontier builds a new practice in an external market with a partner bringing 25 years of local practice. Three answers to the same question: how to grow in tax without paying the toll of developing all the talent in-house.

The business development lesson

For firms that cannot compete in that hiring league, the week leaves a useful positioning lesson. When large structures concentrate their investment in star profiles, a service space opens for mid-sized firms: the recurring tax work of SMEs and family businesses that does not justify senior partner fees but demands continuity and proximity. It is the same space we analysed in our guide to the 90-day business development plan: choose an underserved segment and build a repeatable offer on it.

The second lesson is about communication. All three hires were announced with messages from the responsible partner, team figures and project statements ("expand capabilities", "consolidate growth", "closeness to the client"), a reminder that announcing a hire is itself a business development tool: it signals practice, ambition and the firm's destination.

What to expect this quarter

The moves season usually concentrates after the close of the financial year and at the start of autumn, and everything suggests tax will keep leading hires until year-end, with tax controversy as the second growth leg. Firms planning additions would do well to move before January, when annual bonuses retain candidates, and to prepare in advance the incorporation agreements these processes require.

Candidates, for their part, now negotiate more than pay: they weigh the bench of partners who will join them, the book of business they can bring, exit clauses and the career plan to partnership. Firms that improvise the offer usually lose the candidate at the last mile, when the original firm counter-offers with a clearer projection.

We follow all the moves in our major law firms section and the opportunities for professionals in jobs.

Source: El Confidencial, Iberian Lawyer and Cinco Dias. This piece is informative and does not constitute legal or management advice.