Good afternoon,
The latest Wells Fargo law firm survey found US firms grew revenue by 12.4% in the first half of 2026 on the back of a 4.8% demand increase and higher rates. The lateral board stayed busy: Norton Rose Fulbright took Mintz sports chair Steve Olenick to lead a US sports practice, Venable added two advertising partners in New York, and Greenberg Traurig and Vedder hired in Miami and Chicago.
On the client side, Meta and state AGs are discussing a mid-trial settlement of the teen social-media case that could otherwise cost up to $1.4tn, TikTok agreed to a $400m child-privacy settlement, and the SEC subpoenaed four banks over the Situational Awareness AI-fund collapse. Growth-equity funds pulled record first-half inflows, SoftBank weighed a $20bn bond to fund OpenAI, and Anthropic will pitch IPO investors a $30tn market. In markets, Canada hit back with 50% tariffs and oil fell to a one-week low as Iran and Oman floated reopening Hormuz.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Wells Fargo law firm survey reports 1H revenue up 12.4% as collections lag and unbilled inventory climbs
-Norton Rose, Venable, Greenberg Traurig and Vedder headline a sports, advertising and benefits lateral run
-Meta weighs a mid-trial settlement with states as a courtroom loss could reach $1.4tn
-TikTok pays $400m and Zillow settles with the FTC as privacy and antitrust enforcement bites
-SEC subpoenas Goldman, JPMorgan, Citi and BofA over the Situational Awareness AI-fund collapse
-Growth-equity funds draw record inflows while SoftBank and Anthropic chase AI capital
-Thoma Bravo, Aston Martin and EchoStar keep creditor-rights and restructuring desks busy
-Canada retaliates with 50% tariffs and oil slips on Iran-Oman Hormuz talks
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Norton Rose Fulbright hired sports and entertainment partner Steve Olenick from Mintz to lead its US sports capital and transactions practice and New York private equity team; he is the firm's 16th transactional lateral partner this year.
Venable hired advertising partners Stacy Marcus and Michael Isselin in New York.
Winston Taylor hired former SEC enforcement attorney John Mitchell as an investigations and white collar defense partner in Chicago.
Vedder hired executive compensation and employee benefits shareholder Erin Weber in Chicago.
Greenberg Traurig hired labor and employment shareholder Anne Martinez in Miami.
What today's moves tell us: The day’s moves cluster in sports, advertising, benefits and white-collar work with Norton Rose building a US sports platform around a single practice leader.
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
A strong first half masks a working-capital problem: firms booked more work than they collected.
Large US firms grew revenue 12.4% in the first half of 2026, a Wells Fargo survey found, on a 4.8% rise in demand and higher billing rates, with productivity recovering and headcount growth easing. AI-related work was identified as one of the main drivers of new mandates.
The caution sits in collections. Unbilled inventory rose 17.7% and collection cycles lengthened about 5%, so second-half cash realization, not demand, will decide profitability. For management committees, the task is to convert a busy first half into collected cash before year-end rather than to chase more work.
Practices
Litigation and Enforcement
Consumer-tech liability is turning into real money, and general counsel are treating it as a balance-sheet risk rather than a legal footnote. State-AG consumer cases tend to move from headline to existential number once a trial gets close, and Meta's settlement talks and TikTok's payout fit that arc, which is why the work shifts to settlement negotiation, product-liability and privacy teams. Executives at platform companies are recalculating reserve and indemnity exposure in real time.
Selected Press:
Meta and state attorneys general have discussed a mid-trial settlement of the teen social-media addiction case; a courtroom loss could carry penalties up to $1.4tn, near Meta's market value.
ByteDance's TikTok agreed to pay $400m to settle US claims it unlawfully collected children's data.
The SEC subpoenaed Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi and Bank of America for information on Situational Awareness, the AI hedge fund that fell from about $45bn to $10bn in July.
Zillow settled FTC and state claims that it paid Redfin $100m to drop rental listings, and must let Redfin restart its ad business within six months.
Private Equity and Capital Markets
Capital is flowing back to growth strategies and AI issuers, and the confidence is concentrated around established managers and the largest tech borrowers are capturing most of it. The money is chasing scale and track record, not the long tail, so fund managers and dealmakers are positioning for a fundraising and issuance window even as underwriters price rising AI credit risk into the terms.
Selected Press:
Growth-equity funds drew record first-half inflows as investors returned to AI-linked companies, with fundraising concentrated among established managers.
SoftBank is weighing a $10bn-$20bn bond to refinance its OpenAI investment.
Anthropic is expected to tell IPO investors it sees more than $30tn in potential revenue.
McKesson agreed to buy Precision Medicine Group for $2.25bn; Apollo, IFM and KKR are the final bidders for UK port operator Associated British Ports at about a $14bn valuation.
Restructuring and Private Credit
Creditor-side friction is building around leveraged and private-credit borrowers. When financing costs stay high, value migrates to the desks that can restructure around a balance sheet rather than refinance it, and these amendment and discovery fights are early tremors of that shift. Sponsors and lenders are lining up creditor-rights and liability-management counsel ahead of harder negotiations.
Selected Press:
Thoma Bravo conceded 40 debt sweeteners to creditors including BlackRock and Invesco on $5bn of Proofpoint debt.
A creditor holding $1.8bn of Aston Martin debt filed for discovery on a $750m financing involving BlackRock's HPS.
A trustee accused EchoStar of $1.5bn of "unusual transactions" with its bankrupt subsidiary Hughes Satellite Systems.
Where the Work Sits
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If the FTC's proposed rules on teen social-media access survive legal challenge, every major platform will need outside counsel for compliance buildouts, and the plaintiff bar will use the new standards as a roadmap for state-court tort claims. Firms that can staff both the regulatory-defense and the mass-tort-defense mandates simultaneously will capture the most value.
Creditor-rights work is also moving upward. Rising real yields and tighter lending standards are pushing leveraged mid-market borrowers toward covenant defaults faster than in prior cycles. Restructuring partners who maintained their teams through 2024's lull are now seeing pipeline convert.
On the transactional side, AI-infrastructure capital formation remains the largest fee generator in private-capital markets. The race to build and finance data centers, chip fabs, and model-training clusters is producing club deals, joint ventures, and project-finance structures that demand specialized tax, energy-regulatory, and IP counsel beyond the lead M&A team.
Finally, trade-and-sanctions advisory has become a permanent overhead cost for any company with cross-border supply chains. The latest round of U.S.-China tariff escalations and Canada's retaliatory measures mean compliance calendars are being rewritten quarterly, and the companies that let advisory lapse are the ones showing up in enforcement headlines.
Global Markets
Trade retaliation is back and rate-cut hopes are starting to fade. Canada announced a second round of counter-tariffs on $21 billion of U.S. goods, effective September 1, targeting agriculture and manufactured exports from politically sensitive states. Markets read the move as a signal that NAFTA-successor negotiations have stalled, and the Canadian dollar slid to its weakest level against the greenback since 2020.
Meanwhile, U.S.-China effective tariff rates now sit above 145% on a trade-weighted basis after Beijing's latest retaliation on semiconductor equipment and rare-earth export controls. Oil fell below $74 on demand-destruction fears, and the ECB signaled it would hold rates steady through year-end even as euro-area inflation surprised to the downside. The BOJ, by contrast, kept the door open to another hike, with Governor Ueda citing persistent services-price pressure.
For law firms, the takeaway is straightforward: every cross-border deal now carries a tariff-risk work stream, and sanctions-compliance retainers are becoming as routine as antitrust filings.
Selected Press
Canada files second retaliatory tariff package — C$21 billion in duties on U.S. agriculture and manufacturing, effective September 1.
U.S.-China effective tariffs top 145% — Beijing expands rare-earth export controls; Washington adds semiconductor-equipment restrictions.
Oil drops below $74 — Brent crude falls on demand-destruction fears tied to trade-war escalation and slowing Chinese industrial output.
ECB holds, BOJ hints at hike — European Central Bank signals rates steady through 2026; Bank of Japan keeps tightening bias on services inflation.
Stories to Watch
Nvidia earnings (Wednesday) — The last mega-cap still growing revenue north of 80% YoY reports after the bell. Guidance on Blackwell chip demand will set the tone for AI-infrastructure deal flow through Q4.
Core PCE print (Friday) — The Fed's preferred inflation gauge. A reading above 2.8% would push rate-cut expectations into 2027 and tighten financing conditions for leveraged transactions.
Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole follow-up (Thursday) — Fed Governor Christopher Warsh, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the next Fed chair, delivers remarks on financial stability. Markets will parse every word for policy signals.
Canada retaliatory tariff timeline (September 1 deadline) — Ottawa's C$21 billion tariff package takes effect unless a last-minute deal materializes. Agricultural and manufacturing exporters are already seeking emergency trade-remedy counsel.
Meta settlement talks with FTC — Negotiations over what could become the largest consumer-protection settlement in U.S. history are reportedly in final stages. A headline number above $1 trillion would reset expectations for big-tech regulatory exposure.
SEC "Situational Awareness" probe — The Commission's investigation into whether AI-lab disclosures around frontier-model capabilities meet securities-law standards is expected to produce its first subpoenas this week.
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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