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White & Case unveiled its largest partner class in five years as firms kept hiring across private equity, energy, antitrust and labor, and Hogan Lovells Cadwalader laid out a new AI strategy built around fixed-fee work. Two Big Law headaches surfaced: a nine-figure malpractice suit against DLA Piper and a bid to subpoena Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter in an insider-trading case.
On the client side, the cost of insuring against US tech defaults hit records and investors dumped data-center bonds after wholesale inflation ran hot at 6.3%, reviving Fed rate-hike bets. Dealmakers kept moving, with the Penske Automotive take-private and Proofpoint's $6.3bn purchase of Varonis.
Markets caught a haven bid, with the 10-year Treasury yield at a three-week low ahead of Kevin Warsh's appearance in Bangkok.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-White & Case posts its largest partner class in five years, with 19 US-based partners
-Laterals keep churning: Foley Hoag, Mayer Brown, Ogletree Deakins, Greenberg Traurig, Foley & Lardner, Womble and Ashurst all add partners
-Hogan Lovells Cadwalader sets an AI strategy aimed at fixed and alternative fees by 2029
-AI credit strains deepen: record US tech-default insurance, CoreWeave CDS blow out, data-center bonds sell off
-Hot 6.3% PPI revives Fed-hike bets; the 10-year yield drops in a haven rush
-EQT–Stockbridge, Penske take-private and Proofpoint–Varonis keep deal flow alive
-DLA Piper hit with a nine-figure malpractice suit; ex-associate seeks to subpoena Sidley, Latham and Goodwin
-FTC subpoenas OpenAI and Anthropic; eight states sue OpenAI over child-safety claims
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Foley Hoag hired Brandon Cuffy as a partner in its M&A and private equity groups and private capital industry group in Washington, DC.
Mayer Brown brought on FDA life-sciences partners Scott Liebman (New York and Washington, DC) and Dominick DiSabatino (Washington, DC) from Sheppard Mullin.
Ogletree Deakins secured a six-lawyer labor and employment team from Fisher Phillips — Tami Essis Culkar, Micah Dawson, Janet Himmel, Kimberley Dempster and Sarah Bennett in Denver, and Lindsay Reimer in Houston.
Greenberg Traurig added private funds partner Dannia Altemimei in Chicago from Sidley Austin.
Foley & Lardner hired antitrust partner Jonathan Lasken in Washington, DC, from the DOJ Antitrust Division.
Womble Bond Dickinson added financial services litigation partners Jeffrey Patterson, Ryan Tosi and Phoebe Winder in Boston from K&L Gates.
Ashurst Perkins Coie hired energy and finance lawyer Tamara L. McKinzie from Bracewell in Houston, where the merged firm does not yet have an office.
Skadden hired an antitrust partner from Freshfields in Brussels, as Freshfields exits continue and US firms build European competition benches.
What today's moves tell us: firms are paying up for private equity, energy, antitrust, labor and ex-government talent, and US firms keep raiding Freshfields to build European antitrust benches.
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Operations and Strategy
Firms are investing in US growth and rethinking how AI gets paid for.
White & Case unveiled its largest partner class in five years, including 19 US-based partners, its biggest US cohort since 2022, as part of a three-year plan focused on American growth and work at the intersection of technology, project finance and private capital.
Hogan Lovells Cadwalader, three months after its merger, set out a hybrid AI strategy that pairs custom-built tools with commercial products, with CEO Miguel Zaldivar expecting AI to push pricing toward fixed and alternative fees by 2029 and three new leadership roles to steer tool selection and client pricing. Generative AI is forcing firms to decide whether they sell hours or outcomes, and the move toward fixed fees is a bet on the latter.
Practices
Private Credit and Capital Markets
Dealmakers and credit investors are repricing AI risk fast. Record default-insurance costs, a blowout in CoreWeave's credit-default swaps and a data-center bond selloff point to more work for finance, restructuring and disclosure teams, even as Anthropic pushes toward a rare IPO. Credit scares in this cycle have tended to start as funding and confidence problems rather than defaults, which is why the first calls go to liability-management and workout lawyers.
Selected Press:
AI credit jitters drove US tech-default insurance to record highs, with CoreWeave (roughly $50bn of debt) credit-default swaps topping 1,000 basis points, implying a near-63% five-year default risk; Oracle and SoftBank costs climbed, and Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia set records at far lower levels.
Investors dumped data-center bonds in what the FT called a "Darwin moment," as a market selloff and rising rates tested the AI data-center financing boom.
Anthropic posted a second straight quarterly profit on 45% revenue growth to $16.8bn and heads toward a year-end IPO largely alone as the broader listings market slows; NYC's comptroller urged it to pause the IPO over AI-safety concerns.
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Strategic buyers and sponsors are still transacting through the volatility, favoring take-privates, carve-outs and consolidation among private-capital managers. Dealmakers are positioning for sell-side, financing and integration mandates where the strategic logic outweighs the financing cost.
Selected Press:
EQT agreed to buy US real estate manager Stockbridge for $375m, adding about $37bn in assets; following its $3.7bn purchase of Coller Capital, the deal reflects consolidation among private-capital managers facing hard fundraising, with EQT now at €354bn in assets.
Penske Automotive drew a $16.3bn take-private, including debt, from Motown Acquisition — jointly owned by Penske and Mitsui — at a 10% premium.
GTCR and Elliott agreed to buy CCC Intelligent Solutions for $4.6bn at a 45% premium, and Thoma Bravo's Proofpoint agreed to buy data-security firm Varonis for $6.3bn in cash.
AI, Antitrust and Enforcement
The regulatory perimeter around AI keeps widening, pulling model developers and their boards into privacy, consumer-protection and product-liability exposure. General counsel are treating AI governance as a live litigation risk, not a compliance afterthought.
Selected Press:
The FTC subpoenaed OpenAI and Anthropic, seeking documents on AI-safety incidents, privacy practices and potential consumer-protection violations.
Eight states sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT jeopardizes users' mental health and harms children.
Litigation — Big Law in the Dock
Two cases put firms themselves on the defensive, over advice they gave and the client data they hold. Both point to professional-liability and data-governance work, and to tighter client scrutiny of how firms protect confidential files.
Selected Press:
Sports investor John Textor sued DLA Piper for nine figures, alleging malpractice in European soccer-club deals, including claims the firm altered deal documents while representing him.
Ex-associate Nicolo Nourafchan moved to subpoena Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter in a federal insider-trading case against him and 29 others, seeking records of what files he accessed and associate training on client-file access.
777 Partners' Josh Wander pleaded guilty to fraud, another marker of legal exposure across sports-investment dealmaking.
Where the Work Sits
***
Previous cycles have shown that stress surfaced first as a funding and valuation problem rather than a credit-quality one, and the latest data-center bond selloff and record tech-default insurance fit that mold which is why the early mandates run through liability-management, creditor-rights, structured-finance and disclosure teams before broad default work arrives.
The deal economy is still generating high-end matters. Take-privates like Penske, sponsor consolidation such as EQT–Stockbridge, and strategic buys like GTCR–Elliott's CCC and Proofpoint–Varonis point to M&A, acquisition finance, merger-control and, in the data-security deals, cybersecurity diligence mandates.
AI is becoming its own enforcement and advisory beat. The FTC's demands on OpenAI and Anthropic and the eight-state suit feed AI-governance, privacy, product-liability and consumer-protection work, while the DLA Piper malpractice claim and the subpoena bid against Sidley, Latham and Goodwin drive professional-liability defense and client-data-governance counseling.
Global Markets
Hot inflation is pulling the rate story back toward higher-for-longer, and clients are repositioning.
Dealmakers are weighing financing and hedging windows before the Fed's late-October meeting, and dealmakers are watching whether AI-credit strain spreads into the broader market. When inflation keeps rates higher for longer, boards tend to lock terms and hedge early rather than wait for cheaper money, and decision-makers are treating Warsh's Bangkok remarks as the near-term signal.
Selected Press:
Producer prices rose 6.3% year over year, the hottest since 2022 and well above the 5.3% expected, hardening the case for more Fed tightening.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell about 15 basis points to a three-week low as a haven rush reversed the recent bond selloff, and 10-year munis had their best day since April 2025.
Jobless claims held at 199,000, while UK GDP rose 2.1% in August, its strongest in four years.
US–Mexico tariff talks stalled, with Commerce Secretary Lutnick casting doubt on a near-term deal.
Stories to Watch
Fed Chair Warsh in Bangkok and the Oct. 27–28 FOMC — the rate path after a 6.3% PPI print.
Big Tech earnings next week, including Tesla, Meta and Moody's — reads on AI demand, ad markets and ratings.
Anthropic's year-end IPO and the NYC comptroller's pause call — a test of both the listings window and AI-safety governance.
Energy and shipping risk — Ukraine's plan to resume strikes on Russian oil infrastructure and two vessels sunk near the Strait of Hormuz.
US–Mexico trade talks — stalled negotiations that bear on tariffs and supply chains.
City Therapeutics IPO (Oct. 16) — another test of the reopening listings window.
That’s the rundown. See you next where law meets the markets.
-The BigLaw Markets Team
*DISCLAIMER: BigLaw Markets analyzes publicly available information, filings, press releases, and news stories published by reputable media sources to deliver content that highlights demand for legal services. Certain production processes may be supported by proprietary AI tools and are subject to human editorial judgement and review.
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