Good afternoon,

Kirkland & Ellis is committing $500 million to build a proprietary AI platform, the largest known tech investment by any law firm. Fried Frank is rolling out its own AI tool for fund formation work. Latham & Watkins raided Morrison Foerster's London office for a three-partner M&A and PE team, while Stephenson Harwood is launching in Madrid with eight partners. Davis Polk added antitrust talent from A&O Shearman, and DOJ antitrust staff departures continue to feed the private bar.

On the client side, Caesars Entertainment agreed to a $5.7 billion all-cash takeover by Fertitta Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery's $110 billion acquisition is testing debt markets, and drone makers are lining up IPO advisers ahead of 2027 listings. Core inflation ticked up to 3.3%, US-Iran strikes resumed, and oil crossed $96 a barrel.

Now, on to what matters for your practice today.

Today’s Talking Points

-Kirkland's $500M AI Build / Fried Frank Launches FundAssist / Perella Weinberg Cuts 10% of Staff

-Latham Raids MoFo's London Office / Stephenson Harwood Opens Madrid / Davis Polk Adds Antitrust from A&O Shearman

-Caesars $5.7B Fertitta Takeover / Warner Bros. $110B Debt Test / JD.com-Ceconomy EU Probe / Drone IPOs Ahead

-AI Washing Securities Risk / Australia's A$2B PFAS Suit Against 3M / DOJ Antitrust Departures Feed Private Bar

-Core PCE Hits 3.3% / Oil Tops $96 on Renewed Iran Strikes / Bond Market Tightens 75bp Equivalent

-Deregulation Frees $1.3T for Top Banks / JPMorgan Eyes $20B M&A Target / KKR Says Private Credit Trading 'Likely'

Talent Strategy

Latest Moves

-Latham & Watkins hired a three-partner City M&A and PE team from Morrison Foerster in London: Andrew Boyd (former MoFo London office head), Gary Brown (co-head of European M&A), and Luke Rowland. MoFo appointed litigation partner Ben Summerfield as new London managing partner.

-Davis Polk hired antitrust partner Jessica Delbaum from A&O Shearman in New York.

-Wilson Sonsini hired M&A partner Sachin Kohli from Weil in New York.

-Dechert hired corporate partners David Cho and Min Kim from Milbank in Singapore.

-Stephenson Harwood opens a Madrid office June 1 with an eight-partner team focused on private capital, energy, and infrastructure.

-Jerry Hall joined Dechert's restructuring practice in New York. Heather Miles joined Foley & Lardner's transactions practice in New York.

Private firms continue to recruit from the DOJ antitrust division. Division leaders Gail Slater and Mark Hamer have departed along with at least six others, moving to O'Melveny, Wilson Sonsini, Winston & Strawn, and Sher Tremonte. Separately, a Thomson Reuters/Firm Prospects report found lateral associates now make up 49% of US law firm hiring, up from 43% in 2024, as firms prioritize experience over new graduates..

What today's moves tell us: AI investment and European expansion are driving the hiring cycle. Firms are building antitrust, M&A, and restructuring benches on both sides of the Atlantic, while DOJ departures are feeding senior talent into the private bar.

Operations and Strategy

Two of the largest US law firms are betting that proprietary AI will reshape how legal work gets done and priced.

Kirkland & Ellis is investing roughly $500 million over several years to build a proprietary AI platform, the largest known technology commitment by any law firm. The project involves about 180 technologists and 250 lawyers and is designed to capture the firm's internal expertise across mandates. Kirkland will keep using third-party tools like Harvey and Legora, but aims to differentiate itself beyond the AI tools available to the broader market. The investment could push the firm closer to value-based pricing as AI automates routine tasks.

Fried Frank is rolling out FundAssist, an internally built AI platform that uses OpenAI to search through the firm's previous work product and generate first drafts of fund formation documents. Co-head of private funds Becky Zelenka said the tool will speed up associate development without cutting headcount. Perella Weinberg, meanwhile, cut 10% of its staff, including a dozen partners.

Practices

M&A and Capital Markets

Dealmakers are reading the Caesars-Fertitta cash deal and the jumbo financing behind Warner Bros. Discovery as a sign that sponsors and banks are willing to underwrite size again, even with bond markets volatile. The open question banking and finance teams are watching is whether investors will fund the megadeal debt.

A reopening IPO calendar, from Entrata to the drone makers eyeing 2027, tells capital markets desks the exit window is widening, while the JD.com-Ceconomy probe reminds boards that cross-border execution risk still runs through Brussels.

Selected Press:

Caesars agrees to $5.7B all-cash takeover by Fertitta Entertainment, capping Tilman Fertitta’s years-long pursuit of the Las Vegas casino operator

Bankers prep jumbo debt for $110B Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition backed by the Ellison family — a test of investor appetite for megamerger financing in a volatile bond market

Entrata files for IPO, backed by Silver Lake and Blackstone

Drone makers Quantum Systems and Destinus line up advisers for potential 2027 listings to tap surging defense demand

JD.com’s EUR 2.2B bid for Ceconomy draws an in-depth EU antitrust probe.

Securities Litigation and White Collar

General counsel and disclosure committees are being warned that an AI transformation narrative can become a liability if the story doesn’t match the books. With the SEC making AI misrepresentation an exam priority and three states now requiring documentation of automation-driven layoffs, decision and the Polymarket insider-trading charge signals prosecutors are pushing into novel tech-and-markets fact patterns. That positions securities litigation, white collar, and disclosure-advisory teams for rising defense and counseling work.

Selected Press:

Akerman flags ‘operational AI washing’ — companies using AI narratives to mask financial problems, exposing them to securities fraud claims if records show layoffs were unrelated to AI.

SEC makes AI misrepresentation an exam priority, while California, Colorado, and Illinois now require documenting how roles were automated away.

DOJ charges Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo with insider trading on Polymarket, alleging he used confidential search data to win $1.2M.

Environmental and Product Liability

General counsel at chemicals and industrial companies are watching Australia’s claim as a marker that PFAS exposure is going global and government-led, with damages now scaling into the billions. For clients carrying legacy products and overseas operations, that raises the prospect of multi-jurisdictional discovery and historical, conduct disputes, work that flows to product liability, environmental, and cross-border litigation teams.

Selected Press:

Australia sues 3M for A$2B+ over PFAS foam used on defence sites, its largest-ever government claim, alleging 3M withheld information and misrepresented health risks.

Antitrust and Competition

Executives and antitrust counsel are tracking a widening enforcement map, a monopolization suit over corn seed at home and the JD.com-Ceconomy review abroad, as a signal that both US private plaintiffs and EU regulators remain aggressive. For clients weighing acquisitions or dominant-position strategies, that argues for early competition analysis and points to steady demand for merger-clearance and monopolization-defense work.

Selected Press:

Federal suit accuses Bayer of monopolizing the US genetically engineered corn seed market, alleging hundreds of millions to billions in ill-gotten gains.

JD.com-Ceconomy EU probe adds a cross-border antitrust file. 

Where the Work Sits

***

The Caesars-Fertitta deal, Warner Bros. Discovery's debt package, the Ackman-UMG contest, and the JD.com-Ceconomy EU probe all generate high-end M&A advisory, financing, and antitrust work. Drone company IPOs and the Entrata filing point to growing capital markets mandates, and cross-border deals like the Yinson go-private and Ceconomy acquisition create multi-jurisdictional regulatory files.

 The 'operational AI washing' risk flagged by Akerman, combined with the SEC's examination priority on AI misrepresentation, creates a new front for securities litigation and corporate disclosure advisory. State-level AI employment laws in California, Colorado, and Illinois will drive compliance reviews and litigation defense work. The Polymarket insider trading prosecution adds to a growing set of novel white-collar enforcement matters at the intersection of tech and financial markets.

 Australia's A$2 billion PFAS lawsuit against 3M and the Bayer corn seed antitrust case represent large-scale product liability and competition mandates that will require sophisticated cross-border defense teams. Deregulation freeing $1.3 trillion for top US and UK banks, alongside JPMorgan's $20 billion acquisition ambitions, positions banking and financial institutions practices for advisory and transactional work.

Global Markets

Renewed US-Iran strikes pushing oil back over $96 give energy and shipping clients a reason to revisit hedges and contingency plans, and to read any Hormuz framework as a swing factor for deal pipelines.

Executives and board directors are recalibrating timing as the data turns less friendly. With core PCE firming to 3.3% and the bond market already doing the equivalent of 75bp of Fed tightening through a rising term premium, dealmakers and PE funds are watching the long end of the curve as the cue for whether financing costs make this the moment to deploy or to wait. The throughline for decision-makers: with the rate path ambiguous and geopolitics live, the calendar for raising, refinancing, and launching deals stays cautious until both resolve.

Selected Press:

Core PCE firms to 3.3%, headline to 3.8%, hardening the case for a cautious Fed and keeping June policy in play.

Bond market has already tightened ~75bp, per Bloomberg Economics, as a rising term premium on long-dated Treasuries lifts financing costs.

Oil tops $96 on renewed US-Iran strikes near the Strait of Hormuz, with a White House-dismissed draft Hormuz framework adding volatility.

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.