Good afternoon,
Big Law's new prize is the data-center lawyer. US firms are on pace to hire nearly 300 this year, triple 2020, with Kirkland & Ellis and Dentons each fielding 200-plus. Charlesbank closed a $700 million investment in insurance-defense firm Wood Smith Henning & Berman, and Freshfields tightened partner pay to fund its US push.
On the client side, the AI buildout is softening: Microsoft dropped a UK data-center lease, Firmus pulled a $30 billion Australian IPO, and Gartner flagged $3.5 trillion of AI spending at write-down risk as the Nasdaq logged its worst week since June. SoftBank is weighing a $30 billion move for Allied Universal as a takeover frenzy sweeps Australia.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Data-center lawyers become Big Law's hottest hire; Kirkland and Dentons lead with 200-plus each
-Sidley adds a finance partner and Greenberg Traurig adds real estate partners
-Charlesbank's $700M Wood Smith Henning & Berman deal tests the private-equity-in-law-f-irm model
-AI infrastructure financing frays: Microsoft-Nscale collapse, Firmus IPO pulled, Gartner's $3.5T write-down warning
-SoftBank-Allied Universal and an Australian deal frenzy keep M&A alive
-Albertsons v. Kroger $8B merger-failure trial opens in Delaware
-France unrest and a near-$2T US deficit sharpen the higher-for-longer rate story
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
A talent war has broken out for lawyers with data-center experience: top US firms are on pace to hire nearly 300 this year, triple the 2020 count, per legal-intelligence firm Pirical, with Kirkland & Ellis and Dentons each fielding more than 200. Hiring has shifted from Washington to Texas, where power availability now decides whether a project gets built.
Sidley Austin hired global finance partner Glenn Kunkes in Charlotte from Mayer Brown.
Greenberg Traurig added real estate partners Tiana DeLeo Dunn and Shane C. Griffin in San Francisco and Denver.
What today's moves tell us: firms are paying up for the lawyers who can build and finance data centers, and for finance and real estate benches, as the AI capex cycle reshapes where the work sits.
Check our Rolodex newsletter delivered on Monday at 7:30 am for a weekly overview of the lateral market and executive moves.
Operations and Strategy
Outside capital and partner-pay discipline are reshaping how firms fund growth.
Charlesbank agreed to an investment valuing insurance-defense firm Wood Smith Henning & Berman at about $700 million, a deal that would boost partner pay and fund national expansion. The structure reportedly includes performance milestones and a partial equity recapitalization, testing whether PE-style capital can coexist with partnership governance.
Freshfields is tightening partner-performance scrutiny to sustain its US expansion, trimming some equity allocations and managing others out. At least 13 US partners have left since January, even as US revenue has climbed 172% over four years and firmwide profit per equity partner is set to rise 8% to £2.53 million.
New federal filings show President Trump's Save America PAC paid Sullivan & Cromwell $1.5 million and DLA Piper $667,000 in the third quarter, as Democrats Jamie Raskin, Richard Blumenthal and Adam Schiff press Kirkland & Ellis over its $125 million pro bono deal with the administration, a fight that gains real teeth if Democrats win subpoena power in the midterms.
Practices
AI Infrastructure Finance and Credit
Credit investors and dealmakers are repricing the AI buildout in real time, and the work is shifting from financing growth to managing stress. Doubts about whether AI revenue can service the sector's debt are driving demand from fund managers and sponsors for project-finance, structured-finance, restructuring and disclosure teams, even as the largest players keep hunting for assets.
Selected Press:
America's $10 trillion AI buildout is fraying, with at least 47 major projects delayed, withdrawn or blocked this year and Bernstein estimating only 35% of the US pipeline is credible.
Microsoft canceled its lease of Nscale's 50MW data center in Essex after the grid connection slipped past 2030, leaving the UK startup hunting for a tenant ahead of a planned $35 billion listing.
Firmus pulled a A$44 billion ($30.5 billion) Australian IPO and AirTrunk scrapped a Singapore listing, deepening a selloff in AI-linked stocks and debt.
Gartner warned $3.5 trillion of AI infrastructure spending faces write-downs by 2030, and that more than 80% of specialist "neocloud" providers will stop operating independently.
Private-credit funds raised a record $129 billion over nine months even as third-quarter lending fell 28%, squeezing deployment and pressuring spreads and loan terms.
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Sponsors and strategic buyers are transacting through the volatility, with private capital now the main source of deal funding in several markets. Buyers who did the analytical work through the slowdown are moving decisively on undervalued assets, pointing to busy sell-side, acquisition-finance and fund-formation calendars.
Selected Press:
SoftBank is weighing a $30 billion acquisition of security giant Allied Universal, backed by Warburg Pincus and La Caisse, including about $12 billion of debt.
Australian takeovers are in a frenzy: EQT agreed to buy Cleanaway Waste Management for A$9.3 billion, Dai-ichi Life bid about A$8 billion for Challenger, and SG Fleet, backed by Pacific Equity Partners, agreed to take FleetPartners for A$1.1 billion.
Private capital is now the leading M&A funding source in the UK (36%) and the Netherlands (42%), a Winston Taylor survey of more than 800 dealmakers found.
Accenture is exploring a $1.5 billion sale of its China operations, and Lufthansa is weighing a roughly €1 billion sale of its software unit.
GTCR closed a $14.2 billion flagship fund, among the year's largest.
Antitrust, Litigation and Enforcement
A marquee trial over a collapsed grocery merger and a run of consumer, privacy and product rulings are generating deal-litigation, antitrust and defense mandates. General counsel are watching how courts allocate the cost of failed deals and tighten obligations around consumer data.
Selected Press:
Albertsons opened an $8 billion trial against Kroger in Delaware's Court of Chancery, arguing Kroger doomed their $24.6 billion merger by refusing to divest enough stores to win antitrust clearance.
A federal appeals court blocked California class actions accusing Tesla of overstating its self-driving technology.
Temu agreed to settle Texas data-privacy claims, and Montana sued General Motors over the sale of drivers' personal data.
Kenvue lost a bid to undo revived Tylenol-autism lawsuits, keeping a mass-tort exposure alive alongside its pending Kimberly-Clark merger.
Where the Work Sits
***
The AI buildout softening is carrying the headlines today. The market has seen this shape before: when a capital-heavy boom hits funding and confidence problems well before any real default wave, the first calls go to project-finance, structured-finance and restructuring teams. That is where the Microsoft-Nscale collapse, the pulled Firmus listing and the data-center bond selloff point now, with disclosure and valuation work growing as write-down risk rises.
The deal economy is still producing high-end matters. SoftBank's pursuit of Allied Universal, the Australian takeover wave and private capital's growing share of M&A funding point to cross-border M&A, acquisition finance, fund formation and merger-control mandates, with sponsors leaning on trusted counsel to execute in choppy conditions.
Failed and contested deals are their own fee pool. The Albertsons-Kroger trial turns a dead merger into years of billable work on deal-failure damages and antitrust strategy, while the Tesla, Temu, General Motors and Kenvue matters keep product-liability, privacy and consumer-protection teams busy.
Global Markets
Political stress in Europe and a widening US deficit are hardening the higher-for-longer rate view. Clients are watching whether the AI-credit wobble spreads into broader markets, and executives are weighing financing windows before coming rate decisions in the UK and euro zone while dealmakers look for entry points in the volatility.
Selected Press:
France is in shambles after a violent weekend of protests, and French government bonds fell as unrest met stretched state finances.
The US budget deficit hit a five-year high near $2 trillion, and central bankers signaled higher rates as the AI boom fuels a scramble for cash.
China's economy grew 4.5% in the third quarter as retail sales beat forecasts, keeping Beijing on track for its annual target.
UK inflation data due Wednesday is expected near 3.4%, likely sealing the Bank of England's first rate hike in three years, with the ECB leaning toward a December move.
Stories to Watch
Albertsons v. Kroger (underway, two weeks in Delaware) — an $8 billion test of who pays when a merger dies on antitrust grounds.
UK inflation (Wednesday) — a reading near 3.4% would likely seal the Bank of England's first rate hike in three years; the ECB leans toward December.
Mexico's CFE vote (Oct. 20) — preliminary approval for $12.5 billion of wind and solar projects, a read on private capital returning to Mexican power.
Big Tech earnings — Tesla, Meta, Netflix, SpaceX and Blackstone report this week, key signals on AI demand and private-markets flows.
Anthropic's Washington push — the AI firm is quietly lobbying for its own safety bill even as it carries a BB+ junk rating and courts lenders at double-digit yields.
Europe's unrest — spreading protests and France's budget strain are a live risk for sovereign bonds and the euro.
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.
Thanks for reading!
We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].
