Choosing a lobbying firm is one of the highest-stakes decisions an organization's government affairs function will make. In New York — where the state budget alone shapes hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, tax policy, regulatory authority, and program design — the right partner can be the difference between getting your issue resolved in a single session and watching it stall for years. The wrong partner is expensive in ways that are hard to recover from.
New York State has a mature and competitive market for government relations services. A small number of firms consistently lead in compensation and client volume, and each has distinct strengths. The goal of this guide is not to declare a single best firm — it is to give in-house government affairs leaders, corporate general counsels, nonprofit executives, and association leadership a clear framework for evaluating their options and choosing the partner best suited to their specific situation.
We are a New York State government relations firm ourselves, so we have a point of view. We have tried to write this guide as objectively as possible because we think an honest landscape view serves everyone — prospective clients, the industry, and firms like ours that compete on the merits.
New York State's lobbying market is concentrated at the top. Every year, the state's Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) releases compensation rankings, and a consistent set of firms appears at the top of those lists year after year. Understanding this landscape is the first step in evaluating your options.
The following firms have consistently ranked among the highest-compensated and most influential lobbying practices in New York State:
Below the top tier, New York has a number of specialized firms that may be the right fit depending on your needs:
No list is definitive, and the market shifts year to year. The current JCOPE public reporting database is the best source of truth for who is representing whom and at what scale.
Once you have a shortlist of firms, how do you choose among them? The following five questions, asked plainly in a selection meeting, will surface the information that actually matters.
This is the most important question and the one most often mishandled. Large firms win business with senior partners in the room and then assign accounts to junior staff. Smaller firms sometimes pitch with the senior team and then deliver with the senior team. Neither model is inherently wrong, but the answer to this question determines who you will actually work with for the next several years.
Ask for the specific names of the professionals who will be on your account. Ask how often you will hear from the senior partners. Ask what the escalation path is when something complex comes up. If the answer is vague, assume the delivery team will be more junior than the pitch team.
Lobbying is both a generalist skill and an industry-specific one. A firm may have excellent legislative relationships but limited experience in your sector. In New York, where policy is deeply specialized — Medicaid is a world apart from cap-and-invest, which is a world apart from public procurement — industry experience matters. Ask for a client list in your sector, and ask for recent examples of wins. If the firm is reluctant to share either, that tells you something.
The strongest indicator of sector depth is not the marquee client logo on a pitch deck. It is the firm's track record on substantive issues in your industry over the past two to three years. Ask for that directly.
Lobbying is, at its core, about relationships with the people who make decisions. In New York, those are the Governor and her senior staff, Senate and Assembly leadership, committee chairs, agency commissioners, and the budget officials at the Division of the Budget. Not every firm has deep relationships across all of these — some are strongest in the Legislature, others in the Executive Chamber, others with specific agencies.
Ask the firm to describe their access honestly. Ask where they are strongest and where they are weaker. A firm that claims to be equally deep everywhere is either the largest firm in the state or is overselling. A firm that can clearly articulate its sweet spot is usually more trustworthy.
Government relations in New York increasingly requires a combined service offering. If your organization needs help navigating the state's procurement system, engaging on the annual budget, responding to regulatory changes, or preparing public communications during a crisis, a firm that only does direct lobbying will have gaps. A firm that combines lobbying with procurement services, budget advocacy, tax policy, regulatory work, and strategic communications can handle more of the work in-house and coordinate it more effectively.
This is also a question of staffing. Ask whether the firm has dedicated procurement, tax, or budget specialists on staff, or whether those functions are handled by generalists. Both models can work, but you should know what you are buying.
The largest New York lobbying firms are excellent at high-profile, high-complexity matters where the volume of work justifies a large team. Mid-size firms often deliver more partner time per dollar spent. Small, specialized firms can be extraordinarily effective in their niche and inappropriate outside it.
Think honestly about your own organization. If you are a Fortune 100 company with a major budget item on the table every session, the largest firms are probably the right fit. If you are a regional nonprofit with a single, important policy issue, a specialized firm may serve you far better than a marquee brand name. There is no universal right answer — there is only the right answer for your situation.
The following is a simplified way to think about which kind of firm fits which situation. It is intentionally broad, and good firms exist in every category.
If you need: Full-service legal representation combined with lobbying (e.g., regulatory litigation, contract negotiations with state agencies, complex transactional legal work)
Consider: A law firm with a government affairs practice — Greenberg Traurig, Manatt Phelps & Phillips, or similar.
If you need: Dedicated government relations representation across lobbying, budget advocacy, procurement, and regulatory affairs — as a primary partner
Consider: A top-tier government relations firm — Brown & Weinraub, Bolton-St. Johns, Ostroff Associates, and peers in that tier.
If you need: High-profile public affairs work that blends lobbying with strategic communications and media engagement
Consider: A public affairs firm with lobbying capability — Mercury Public Affairs, SKDK, or similar.
If you need: Deep technical expertise in a single sector (healthcare, insurance, energy, real estate)
Consider: A specialist firm with recognized depth in your sector, or a top-tier firm with a strong practice lead in that area.
If you need: New York City-specific land use, zoning, or real estate work
Consider: Firms with a strong NYC practice — Kasirer, Capalino, or firms with dedicated NYC offices.
A few patterns we see repeatedly when organizations are evaluating firms:
The right Albany lobbying firm for your organization depends on what you need to accomplish, what sector you operate in, how complex your matters are, and how you prefer to work. The firms named in this guide are all credible choices for the right client. The wrong firm is almost always a firm that was a great fit for someone else.
Our advice, having watched clients navigate this decision for nearly 30 years: talk to three firms. Ask all five questions above in each meeting. Pay attention to who answers specifically versus generally. Read the filings. And trust the partner you could see yourself calling at 7am when something goes wrong — because at some point, you will.
Ostroff Associates represents approximately 140 clients across New York's most complex regulated industries. If you are evaluating firms and would like a candid conversation about whether we are the right fit for your situation, we welcome the conversation — and if we are not the right fit, we will tell you so and point you to the firm we think is.
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