Good afternoon,
Firms are building for the AI wave and posting records. Kirkland & Ellis is stacking real estate partners into a new 600-lawyer "real assets" group aimed at AI data centers, Clifford Chance booked record revenue of £2.6 billion, and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer cleared $2.4 billion in its first post-merger results. Laterals kept moving into energy, private equity, and employment.
On the client side, AMD will invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as Alphabet's revenue rose 24% on an AI cloud surge and a $205 billion capex plan. EU regulators cleared the $110 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal even as it stays frozen in US courts, and an oil-price surge drove a global bond sell-off that pushed the 10-year Treasury yield to a 17-month high.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Kirkland builds a 600-lawyer "real assets" group for AI data centers; hires real estate partners from Willkie and Ropes & Gray
-Clifford Chance posts record £2.6B revenue; HSF Kramer clears $2.4B in first post-merger results
-Laterals: Foley & Lardner, Orrick (Paris), Greenberg Traurig, Thompson Hine, Hunton add partners
-AMD to invest up to $5B in Anthropic; Alphabet revenue up 24% with a $205B AI capex plan
-EU clears the $110B Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger; deal still paused in the US
-AI data-center debt swells: Galaxy Digital's $3.5B junk bond and Blackstone's $3B AirTrunk loan
-Workplace-AI litigation arrives: a Meta layoff-selection suit tests the evidence problem
-Oil surge drives a bond sell-off; the 10-year Treasury yield hits a 17-month high
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Foley & Lardner hired labor and employment partner Cathryn Le Regulski from Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C.
Orrick added energy and infrastructure partner Antoine Bouzanquet from Willkie Farr & Gallagher in Paris.
Greenberg Traurig brought on private equity partner Brian Arnfelt in Chicago.
Thompson Hine launched a dedicated energy practice with partners Robert L. Nelson Jr. and Peter Bekker across Los Angeles, New York, Silicon Valley, and Washington.
Hunton Andrews Kurth rehired environmental policy partner Elizabeth Horner, a former Senate environment staffer, in Washington.
What today's moves tell us: firms are hiring for the AI buildout, energy, and the deal economy and real estate has become a data-center practice.
Operations and Strategy
Firms are chasing the AI buildout and reporting strong numbers, while private equity keeps buying into the business of law.
Kirkland is merging its real estate practice with its infrastructure, energy, and minerals and mining teams to form a roughly 600-lawyer "real assets" group aimed squarely at AI data centers. The work is corporate rather than land acquisition: financing, joint ventures, and M&A to move large projects across the finish line. The firm has hired 12 real estate partners in the past year, most recently from Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Ropes & Gray, and says more are coming. "You hear a lot about the talent war, and we plan to play to win," said partner Michelle Kelban.
The results season is running hot. Clifford Chance posted record global revenue of £2.6 billion ($3.5 billion), driven by M&A, private equity, and capital markets work, even as US growth slowed; the firm also raised partner pay to sharpen its US push. Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer reported $2.4 billion in revenue and profit per equity partner above $2 million in its first results since the transatlantic merger.
Private equity keeps buying law-firm infrastructure. Uplift Investors announced its fourth deal in the personal injury space, investing in the back-office operations of Rhode Island's Bottaro Injury Lawyers through a management services organization.
Practices
M&A and Antitrust
Dealmakers are getting a read on multi-jurisdictional execution risk. EU clearance of Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery shows regulators willing to bless large media consolidation with concessions, even as US litigation keeps the deal frozen — a split-venue outcome that general counsel and boards are studying as they price antitrust timing into new deals. Take-privates and sponsor exits kept the pipeline active even as zombie fund assets seek an exit point.
Selected Press:
EU cleared the $110 billion Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger after the companies agreed to end a Universal distribution deal; US courts still have it paused amid state lawsuits.
Prologis agreed to buy UK warehouse landlord Segro after winning board support for an improved $18.7 billion cash-and-share offer.
Penske Corp. and Mitsui offered to take Penske Automotive Group private in a $14 billion deal; Brookfield agreed to buy Aypa Power from Blackstone for $7 billion.
Platinum Equity neared a deal for about 50% of Nestlé’s European water business at a $5.7 billion valuation, while the EU hit Google with a $1 billion antitrust fine.
Private equity assets stuck in “zombie funds” hit a record, pressuring sponsors to engineer exits and secondaries.
Private Credit and Restructuring
The financing story of the week is AI-infrastructure debt, and it is reshaping credit markets: new data-center borrowings are large enough that strategists warn AI debt is crowding out Treasuries. Sponsors and lenders are watching redemptions and a record pile of capital stuck in aging funds, conditions that keep restructuring and fund-liquidity lawyers busy.
Selected Press:
Galaxy Digital planned a $3.5 billion debut junk-bond sale to fund a data center tied to CoreWeave; Blackstone lined up banks for a $3 billion loan for AirTrunk’s Australian data center.
Aston Martin raised $735 million from BlackRock’s HPS Investment Partners to shore up liquidity; pool supplier Leslie’s weighed a Chapter 11 filing.
Labor, Employment, and AI Liability
Workplace-AI litigation is arriving, but the early cases show how hard it is to prove. Employers, general counsel, and plaintiffs’ firms are watching a Meta suit as a test of whether workers can reach evidence about how AI tools drive employment decisions — a question that will shape compliance and disclosure practices.
Selected Press:
Meta employees allege AI tools helped select workers for layoffs; a judge noted plaintiffs “were not in the rooms where it happened,” and arbitration clauses may keep many claims private.
A federal judge struck down New York City’s law barring Uber and Lyft from deactivating drivers without notice as unconstitutional.
A Fifth Circuit panel ruled OSHA cannot require Exxon Mobil and others to log work-related mental illnesses.
Cybersecurity, IP, and Governance
Cyber and AI-governance risk is moving to the center of corporate liability. Boards and general counsel are tracking incident-response exposure, trade-secret theft tied to the AI chip race, and Delaware’s move to regulate AI-run entities, each a source of new advisory and litigation work.
Selected Press:
OpenAI said its models “broke containment” during testing and reached the internet in what it called a cyber incident, raising fresh AI-liability questions.
Blank Rome shed three proposed data-breach class actions on jurisdictional grounds after a May breach exposed data on about 57,000 people.
Renesas sued Navitas for allegedly poaching employees to steal AI-chip trade secrets; Delaware is drafting a framework to license autonomous, AI-run companies with a liability shield.
Where the Work Sits
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The clearest new pool is the AI buildout as a real-assets practice. Kirkland’s bet signals where data-center mandates sit: real estate, project and acquisition financing, joint ventures, and power and infrastructure work, bundled for hyperscaler clients. Firms with energy, real estate, and infrastructure benches under one roof are positioned for the highest-value data-center matters.
The financing of that buildout is its own mandate stream. Record data-center debt, Galaxy Digital’s junk bond, Blackstone’s AirTrunk loan, plus a record in stranded fund capital point to work for leveraged finance, private credit, fund-liquidity, and restructuring teams as sponsors engineer exits and lenders structure bespoke capital.
Cross-border antitrust is where deal-certainty work concentrates. The split EU–US outcome on Paramount–Warner shows why merger parties need parallel strategies across regulators and courts, feeding antitrust, appellate, and deal-certainty mandates on large consolidations.
Employment and cyber litigation round out the demand. Workplace-AI suits, trade-secret fights over AI chips, and data-breach exposure hand labor, IP, and privacy teams new questions, while Delaware’s AI-entity framework opens fresh corporate and governance work for boards testing novel structures.
Global Markets
Rates and oil are back in the driver’s seat as clients are watching an oil-driven bond sell-off reset the cost of capital. With the 10-year Treasury yield at a 17-month high, executives and CFOs are weighing whether to lock financing now, while sponsors track AI-infrastructure borrowing that competes with government debt for buyers. Decision-makers are also reading a softer inflation picture in Europe against a still-hawkish US backdrop.
Selected Press:
The 10-year US Treasury yield topped 4.7% for the first time since January 2025 as an oil-price surge drove a global bond sell-off; the 2-year hit 4.3%.
The ECB held its deposit rate at 2.25% but left room for hikes; UK inflation cooled to a 15-month low of 2.6%.
The US House approved $95 billion to fund the Iran war and passed a package limiting insider trading; Korea’s KOSPI rebounded 10% in two days as a margin unwind ended.
Stories to Watch
New York Times DOJ subpoena hearing (today) — a Manhattan federal judge weighs quashing subpoenas to reporters in a leak probe; a press-freedom marker for media clients.
House Oversight Epstein testimony (today) — former Barclays CEO Jes Staley testifies behind closed doors.
CFPB confirmation (today) — Capital One’s Brian Johnson testifies before Senate Banking ahead of a likely CFPB directorship, a signal on the agency’s direction.
Anthropic IPO watch — AMD’s up-to-$5 billion investment lands as Anthropic, valued near $1 trillion, has filed to go public as soon as this fall.
SpaceX lock-up expiry — shares free up in about two weeks with debut earnings due Aug. 4.
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 newsletters that highlight the drivers of demand for legal services.
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