Good afternoon,
Davis Polk has hired William Curtin, the global head of Hogan Lovells' M&A practice, just days before Hogan's merger with Cadwalader closes on July 1. The move caps a string of high-profile M&A lateral additions for Davis Polk and arrives alongside confirmation that restructuring legend James Sprayregen has selected Paul Weiss (negotiations ongoing). Kirkland added Quinn Emanuel's appellate co-chair, while Weil, Paul Hastings, Paul Weiss, and Latham each added senior partners in London, New York, and Houston.
On the client side, Merck KGaA agreed to buy Bio-Techne for $11.3 billion, Bain Capital won VW's Everllence auction at about €7.4 billion, and Qualcomm is paying $3.9 billion for AI software startup Modular. Ares Management's flagship private credit fund was hit by 14% withdrawal requests, and core PCE inflation reached a 2.5-year high of 3.4%.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Davis Polk Lands Hogan Lovells Global M&A Head Curtin / Sprayregen Confirmed at Paul Weiss / Kirkland Taps Quinn Emanuel Appellate Co-Chair
-Weil, Latham Add Senior Partners in London / Paul Hastings, Paul Weiss Hire in New York and Houston
-Merck KGaA Buys Bio-Techne for $11.3B / Bain Wins VW Everllence at ~€7.4B / Qualcomm Acquires Modular for $3.9B
-Ares Private Credit Fund Hit by 14% Redemption Requests / MGX Raises ~$50B for AI Infrastructure
-Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of Illicit Claude Access / States Target Data Broker Regulation / AI Shopping Liability Questions Emerge
-Core PCE Hits 3.4% / US Corporate Profits at Post-WWII Highs / Japan Unveils $2.3T Investment Plan
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Davis Polk hired William Curtin from Hogan Lovells as a partner in Washington, DC. Curtin led Hogan's global M&A practice since 2016, sat on its global board, and advised on more than $100 billion in deals for clients including Airbus, Arm, Coca-Cola, and Cloudflare. The move comes days before Hogan's merger with Cadwalader closes on July 1. Davis Polk has added top M&A talent from Sullivan & Cromwell, Ropes & Gray, Debevoise, and Jones Day.
Paul Weiss is set to hire James Sprayregen, the founder of Kirkland & Ellis' restructuring practice, who spent 32 years at the firm. Sprayregen spent the last three years as vice chairman of strategy and growth at Hilco Global. Paul Weiss's Paul Basta, Sprayregen's former top lieutenant at Kirkland, leads the practice there.
Kirkland & Ellis hired Christopher Michel, co-chair of Quinn Emanuel's national appellate practice, to lead its Supreme Court and appellate group.
Weil Gotshal hired James Crooks from Sidley Austin as a capital solutions partner in London.
Latham & Watkins hired Richard Offord from Travers Smith as a data and technology transactions partner in London.
Paul Hastings hired Brian Miner from Dechert as a private equity partner in New York.
Paul Weiss hired Austin Lee from Bracewell as an M&A partner in Houston.
BakerHostetler hired Mary Waller as a partner in its healthcare business group in Chicago.
Kennedys hired a four-partner, 12-lawyer litigation team from Tyson & Mendes to boost its US corporate defense roster.
Winston Taylor hired Daniel Valencia as an IP litigation partner in Washington, DC.
What today's moves tell us: Davis Polk's hire of Hogan Lovells' M&A head — days before the Hogan-Cadwalader merger closes is the kind of move that signals confidence in a firm's competitive position and appetite for top-tier deal talent. The confirmation of Sprayregen selecting Paul Weiss and Kirkland's addition of Quinn Emanuel's appellate co-chair show that the most profitable firms continue to recruit elite practice leaders.
Operations and Strategy
Firms are quietly restructuring how they handle diversity and inclusion values as political and regulatory pressures shift under the second Trump administration.
Law firms have sharply reduced public postings for standalone DEI leadership roles since the start of the current administration, but many are repackaging and redistributing the work under different titles and departments rather than abandoning it. Diversity professionals are increasingly being asked to embed inclusion and equity principles into broader talent, recruiting, and professional development functions, blurring the line between classic DEI posts and mainstream HR or talent roles. The shift reflects a broader recalibration across Big Law: firms are adapting their public posture on diversity while retaining much of the underlying work within other structures.
Practices
Corporate M&A and Capital Markets
Dealmakers and boards are acting with conviction on large cross-border transactions, particularly in Germany where deal volumes are up about 70% this year to around $145 billion. Goldman Sachs' Christopher Droege noted that "there is a growing conviction that scale is an imperative" driving boards to move decisively despite geopolitical complexity. The pipeline of multi-billion-dollar deals, from life sciences to automotive components to AI software, creates sustained M&A, financing, and competition advisory work for Big Law teams across New York, London, and Frankfurt.
Selected Press:
Merck KGaA agreed to acquire Bio-Techne for $11.3 billion ($73/share, ~24% premium), its largest deal since the 2014 Sigma-Aldrich acquisition.
Bain Capital won VW's auction for a controlling stake in marine engine business Everllence at about €7.4 billion, beating rival bids from CVC and an EQT-led consortium.
Qualcomm agreed to acquire AI software startup Modular for $3.9 billion in an all-stock deal to challenge Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem with hardware-agnostic software.
EasyJet signaled willingness to entertain a higher offer from Castlelake by granting more time and access to improve on its ~£4.93 billion bid.
Ryman Hospitality is exploring the sale of its 70% interest in Opry Entertainment Group, which owns the Grand Ole Opry House and Ryman Auditorium.
H.B. Fuller agreed to acquire UK medical products maker Advanced Medical Solutions for £659 million.
Funds and Private Credit
On the fundraising front, MGX raised about $50 billion mostly form digital infrastructure. Redemption pressure across semi-liquid private credit vehicles is intensifying. Industry-wide Q2 withdrawal requests now exceed $17 billion, and gating mechanisms are being tested at several major funds. For restructuring, secondaries, fund advisory, and investor-side practices, the stress is generating mandates around liquidity management, gating disputes, NAV methodology, and portfolio repositioning.
Selected Press:
Ares Management's flagship private credit fund was hit by 14.4% withdrawal requests (~$1.5 billion) in Q2. The firm enforced a 5% quarterly cap, honoring about a third of requests. Most outflows came from non-US institutions and family offices.
MGX, Abu Dhabi's AI investment vehicle, secured nearly $50 billion from sovereign wealth funds and global institutional investors. The fund targets AI infrastructure, data centers, semiconductor hardware, and frontier model development, with ambitions to exceed $100 billion in AUM.
Litigation and Regulatory
AI-related enforcement and compliance disputes are creating a new category of high-stakes federal litigation and regulatory advisory work. Anthropic's Congressional testimony on illicit access, combined with state-level data broker regulation and emerging AI shopping liability questions, puts cybersecurity, data privacy, consumer protection, and government investigations practices in the direct line of demand.
Selected Press:
Anthropic told Congress that Alibaba allegedly created about 25,000 fake accounts generating 28.8 million interactions with Claude, targeting agentic reasoning and software engineering capabilities. Anthropic framed it as part of a broader pattern of "distillation" attacks by Chinese AI labs.
States across the US are moving to force data brokers to register, disclose what personal information they trade, and honor consumer deletion requests. California's DROP system and Connecticut's new law are the key models.
AI shopping liability questions are growing as banks, retailers, and AI companies debate responsibility when chatbot-driven purchases go wrong. A National Consumer Law Center attorney said litigation is likely before regulation catches up.
Senator Warren plans to call for antitrust scrutiny of AI and revamp deal review processes.
Trump ordered the DOJ to examine gasoline prices, citing a gap between oil declines and pump prices.
Where the Work Sits
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The M&A pipeline is generating mandates at volume and complexity. Merck KGaA's $11.3 billion acquisition of Bio-Techne, Bain's €7.4 billion buyout of VW's Everllence, and Qualcomm's $3.9 billion all-stock deal for Modular each involve cross-border structuring, regulatory review, and financing work that pulls in M&A, capital markets, tax, and competition teams simultaneously. The contested EasyJet situation and Opry Entertainment exploration add sell-side advisory and strategic alternatives mandates to the pipeline.
Private credit stress is the clearest near-term driver of restructuring, fund advisory, and investor-side work. When Ares is gating a $1.5 billion redemption queue and industry-wide Q2 withdrawal requests exceed $17 billion, the downstream work — secondaries transactions, gating disputes, NAV methodology review, and regulatory compliance — creates high-end mandates across restructuring, fund formation, and securities litigation practices.
AI-related enforcement is opening a new litigation and regulatory front. Anthropic's distillation allegations against Alibaba, state data broker regulation, and AI shopping liability questions are creating mandates for cybersecurity, data privacy, government investigations, consumer protection, and international trade practices. Senator Warren's planned call for antitrust scrutiny of AI could add another regulatory layer.
Global Markets
Clients, particularly on the consumer business, are watching inflation data closely after core PCE hit a 2.5-year high, a reading that complicates any near-term case for rate cuts and strengthens the hand of those calling for further tightening. Corporate profits, meanwhile, are sitting at levels not seen since the Truman presidency, which historically has drawn political and regulatory scrutiny. Executives and boards weighing strategic moves are operating in an environment where financing costs remain elevated but deal conviction, particularly in Europe, appears strong enough to push transactions forward.
Selected Press:
Core PCE inflation rose 3.4% annually in May, its highest level since October 2023. Headline PCE reached 4.1%.
US corporate profit margins have reached levels not seen since shortly after WWII. The Q1 GDP revision (due today) is expected to confirm.
Japan announced a $2.3 trillion, 14-year investment plan covering AI and semiconductors.
South Korea stock volatility hit a record high.
EU-US trade deal takes effect. US-India talks ended without clarity on a deal.
Big banks aced this year's easier stress test.
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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