From Policy to Payroll: Let the Legal Talent Wars Begin

With President Donald Trump’s recently signed executive order opening the door for retirement plans to hold private equity, crypto, real estate and other alternative assets, the $8 trillion US 401(k) market is on the cusp of a massive restructuring. For the investment industry, it is a policy green light to bring once-exclusive products to millions of everyday savers. For legal professionals, it is the starting gun for a race to hire, re-skill and re organize around a new reality: alternative investments, which have been steadily edging toward the financial mainstream, are now positioned for permanent inclusion.

Immediate impact: Two parallel legal hiring surges

Almost overnight, demand will surge across both in-house counsel and law firms. The early-mover advantage will be real, but so will the reputational and legal risks for those who get it wrong. Alternative asset managers are moving quickly to explore defined-contribution-friendly products. In-house legal teams will face an urgent need for regulatory interpretation, fiduciary duty frameworks, product structuring and participant disclosure that meets both regulatory scrutiny and public comprehension. To do so, these firms will need to hire attorneys with hybrid expertise in ERISA, securities law and product development. As more firms compete for this talent, compensation will rise and so will expectations.

At the same time, law firms will experience similarly strong, and in some cases sharper, demand growth. Many smaller or mid-sized managers entering this space for the first time lack in-house counsel altogether, and will turn to outside advisers for everything from product structuring to distribution strategy. Others have historically avoided the retail channel due to high costs, particularly investor relations and education functions, but this policy shift will spur them to act, and they will need external guidance to do it efficiently and defensibly.

Law firms can also expect a surge in work designing retirement-plan-eligible structures, needs for litigation readiness and cross-border advisory as US managers look to offer similar products overseas.

In the medium to long term, the most valuable legal professionals will be those who can bridge institutional and retail worlds, those with the ability to translate private-market complexity into terms a plan participant can understand, anticipate multi-regulator oversight and align marketing, compliance and operational teams. Compliance professionals with marketing review and disclosure expertise will become especially sought after.

Competitive pressure and the investor relations effect

This shift will also create competitive pressure among managers to establish or expand retail-focused investor relations and marketing teams, functions that have historically been underdeveloped in alternative firms focused solely on institutional clients. These teams will need close partnership with legal and compliance to develop marketing materials that balance appeal with regulatory accuracy.

For some firms, this will be their first experience engaging with FINRA marketing review, retail advertising standards or mass-market educational campaigns for complex products. That means new compliance hires, increased workload for their in-house counsel and more advisory mandates for law firms to train and guide non-legal staff on permissible communications.

International market implications

This policy shift in the US will not only transform domestic markets, but it could alter the balance of influence between the world’s two dominant alternative investment hubs: New York and London. For years, EU and UK institutional investors, representing large pools of capital from government-backed retirement schemes, have dictated terms to US alternative funds seeking access to that capital. The opening of the $8 trillion US defined contribution market may reverse some of that dynamic.

The opportunity is significant: access to the US DC channel could diversify revenue streams for UK and EU managers and encourage new product development tailored to retail savers. It will also drive legal hiring in London and other financial centers, particularly for cross-border structuring, US regulatory navigation and transatlantic marketing compliance. No matter what happens, New York and London will remain the pre-eminent cities for alternative investment, though the competitive dynamics may shift toward a “winner-take all” scenario in which firms with the fastest regulatory alignment and the deepest legal benches capture the lion’s share of the opportunity.

The new reality of democratized private markets

Trump’s executive order opens a high-stakes contest. The winners will be those who integrate legal strategy into product design from day one, positioning themselves to capture market share while protecting plan sponsors and savers. The losers will learn the hard way that in the democratization of private markets, the law is not an afterthought: it’s the new foundation.