Good afternoon,

Lateral hiring keeps ticking. Paul Hastings added securities litigator Jennifer Burns Luz from Goodwin Procter in Boston, while King & Spalding hired Mallesons private capital co-head Nicola Yeomans in Singapore. A new Chambers survey confirms Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis remain the top destinations for associates looking to move. And Fenwick & West agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims tied to the FTX collapse.

On the client side, Eli Lilly is buying three vaccine developers for up to ~$4 billion, private credit's secondary trading market is accelerating fast, and oil dropped 10% on hopes of a US-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, on to what matters for your practice today.

Today’s Talking Points

-Paul Hastings, King & Spalding Add Lateral Talent in Boston and Singapore / Latham, Kirkland Top Chambers Survey

-Fenwick Settles FTX Claims for $54M / PE Firms Court Personal Injury Law Firms

-Eli Lilly’s ~$4B Vaccine Play / First Carolina IPO / SpaceX Starlink Wireless Plans

-Private Credit Secondary Trading Surges / Buyout Bankers Pre-Sell Debt to Cut Risk

-Boeing Cleared in 737 MAX Fraud Case / Google Appeals Antitrust Ruling / Bayer Roundup Objections

-Oil Drops 10% on Iran Deal Hopes / Consumer Sentiment at Record Low / Fed May Lean Toward Hikes

-SCOTUS End-of-Term Cases Pending / Anthropic Nears Classified AI Deal With White House

Talent Strategy

Latest Moves

-Paul Hastings hired securities litigation partner Jennifer Burns Luz from Goodwin Procter in Boston. She spent 20+ years at Goodwin serving life sciences and technology companies.

-King & Spalding hired private capital and M&A partner Nicola Yeomans from Mallesons in Singapore, where she was co-head of private capital. She previously spent two decades at legacy Herbert Smith Freehills. The move gives K&S its fourth corporate partner in Singapore.

Talent choices: A new Chambers survey ranked Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, and Cooley as the top three firms on associates’ wish lists when considering lateral moves.

What today's moves tell us: Firms are building out securities litigation and Asia-Pacific private capital benches, while a new Chambers survey confirms Latham and Kirkland remain the most desirable lateral destinations.

Operations and Strategy

A major settlement highlights ongoing risk from the crypto era, while private equity is angling for a new revenue stream from personal injury firms.

Fenwick & West agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims that it helped facilitate FTX’s fraud, under a preliminary deal filed in Miami federal court. The tech-focused firm, which served as lead outside counsel to FTX, denies wrongdoing and says it was unaware of the fraud. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, including David Boies, call the deal reasonable. The settlement comes amid a second wave of FTX-related resolutions following the 2024 sentencing of founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Separately, big law private equity clients are moving into the personal injury legal market. As Bloomberg Law reports, Apollo, Fortress Investment Group, and Stifel Financial attended an invite-only conference at Holland & Knight’s New York office. Investors are backing call centers and lead-generation companies to make plaintiffs’ firms more efficient, though skeptics worry about investor influence crossing into client services.

Practices

M&A and Capital Markets

Pharma dealmaking is active, and the IPO pipeline keeps growing for both banks and tech clients.

Eli Lilly will acquire Curevo, LimmaTech Biologics, and Vaccine Co. in deals worth up to ~$4 billion to rebuild its infectious-disease pipeline, funded by GLP-1 drug revenue. The targets add vaccine candidates for shingles, Staphylococcus aureus, and Epstein-Barr virus. On the IPO side, First Carolina Financial Services, a Raleigh-based lender with $3.4 billion in assets, filed for a NYSE listing with KBW as sole bookrunner, joining a wave of regional bank IPOs. SpaceX’s IPO filings show plans to position Starlink as a direct competitor to terrestrial wireless carriers, using upgraded satellites and spectrum acquired from EchoStar.

Private Credit and Restructuring

The $1.8 trillion private credit market is shifting from buy-and-hold to active trading as stress builds across portfolios.

Private credit managers are embracing secondary trading of loans after years of holding to maturity. Apollo, KKR, and opportunistic buyers like Diameter are buying discounted assets, while JPMorgan is increasingly brokering these trades. BDCs are cutting exposure to vulnerable software and ARR-based loans. Oaktree and Coller expect secondary portfolio sales and restructurings to reshape the market. Separately, banks arranging LBO financings are increasingly pre-selling debt packages weeks before official launch to lock in pricing and reduce hung-loan risk, widening the investor base to include more Asian and European lenders.

Litigation

A fraud verdict goes Boeing’s way, while antitrust and mass tort cases move forward on parallel tracks.

A jury cleared Boeing in the 737 MAX fraud lawsuit. Google is appealing the ruling that it holds illegal monopolies in online search and advertising. Bayer’s $7.25 billion Roundup settlement is facing its first formal objections from attorneys representing 13 cancer patients in Missouri. The Federal Circuit reinstated $82.2 million of a $104.6 million verdict in Versata Software v. Ford over licensing and trade-secret claims. North Carolina sued Vietnamese EV maker VinFast for failing to meet commitments to build an EV and battery factory in the state.

Where the Work Sits

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Lilly’s ~$4 billion vaccine acquisition and the First Carolina IPO filing add to the M&A and capital markets pipeline. The SpaceX Starlink disclosure creates telecom regulatory and IP mandates as the company positions itself against established wireless carriers. These deals mean more high-end M&A, securities, and regulatory work for firms with life sciences, tech, and financial institutions practices.

Private credit’s shift toward secondary trading is generating restructuring, fund formation, and structured finance mandates. Banks pre-selling LBO debt packages need complex documentation and syndication counsel. As stress builds in software-backed portfolios and BDCs adjust exposure, expect more out-of-court workouts and portfolio sales requiring sophisticated credit advisory.

Litigation demand remains broad. The Fenwick FTX settlement signals more professional liability exposure for firms that touched crypto clients. Boeing, Google, Bayer, and VinFast each represent active dockets in product liability, antitrust, mass tort, and government enforcement.

PE’s move into personal injury law firms creates a new category of fund formation, regulatory, and corporate governance work as investors and law firms structure these deals around ethics rules and client-service boundaries.

Global Markets

Oil is leading the moves as Iran deal hopes ripple through energy, equities, and yields.

Brent crude dropped 10.1% to $93.63 a barrel after President Trump said US-Iran negotiations over a ceasefire extension and reopening the Strait of Hormuz are “proceeding nicely.” A draft memorandum reportedly includes a 60-day ceasefire extension, Hormuz reopening with Iran clearing mines, gradual lifting of the US naval blockade, and unfreezing of Iranian assets. US and Israeli jets did strike Iranian vessels in the Strait hours before the announcement.

US consumer sentiment fell to an all-time low of 44.2, well below the prior low of 49.8, as high energy costs pressure households. Fed minutes suggest growing support for rate hikes if inflation stays elevated. In Asia, the Nikkei soared 2.87% to fresh all-time highs, posting an 8.95% three-day gain. The STOXX 600 rose 1.04% to within 1% of its February record. German 10-year yields fell 10 bps to 2.93%. China cut its policy loan rate to a record low to support growth while expanding travel curbs on top AI talent at private firms.

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.