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Kirkland & Ellis is staffing up its $500M AI program with roughly 50 dedicated engineers and more than 250 attorneys embedded in "AI Pods," while King & Spalding pulled a five-partner international arbitration team from WilmerHale led by Hall of Famer Gary Born. The lateral market stays active across tax, funds, and executive comp, with multiple partner-level hires at Paul Weiss, Skadden, Milbank, Simpson Thacher, and others.

On the client side, SpaceX agreed to acquire Cursor AI for $60B, Yum! Brands is moving forward with the sale of Pizza Hut for $2.7B, and Nvidia is raising $25B in its first bond offering since 2021. G7 leaders split over whether the US-Iran deal will actually reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Friday.

Now, on to what matters for your practice today.

Today’s Talking Points

-King & Spalding Raids WilmerHale Arbitration Team / Paul Weiss, Skadden, Milbank Add Partners / Tax Laterals Across Multiple Firms

-Kirkland Staffs 50+ AI Engineers and 250+ Lawyers in AI Pods / Weil Opens New Boston Office

-SpaceX Acquires Cursor AI for $60B / Yum Sells Pizza Hut for $2.7B / Ensemble Health $12B PE Deal / Germany Blocks UniCredit-Commerzbank

-Anthropic Negotiates With White House on Export Ban / Microsoft Faces Shareholder Suit / xAI-OpenAI Case Dismissed

-Nvidia Plans $25B Bond Sale / DeepSeek Closes Record $7B+ Round

-G7 Splits on Hormuz Timeline / Goldman Cuts All 2026 Rate Cuts / BOJ Hikes to 30-Year High

Talent Strategy

Latest Moves

What today's moves tell us: International arbitration, investment management, tax, and fund transactions are attracting lateral investment across New York, with firms building deep benches in practices tied to cross-border deal flow and sponsor activity.

Operations and Strategy

Kirkland's AI buildout comes into focus as firms continue expanding footprints across major markets.

Bloomberg Law reports that Kirkland & Ellis has roughly 50 dedicated AI engineers working on its proprietary platform, with nearly 40 open job postings in AI and legal tech in Chicago and Houston. More than 250 Kirkland attorneys are embedded in what the firm calls "AI Pods" and "custom builds." The scale indicates the project was underway before Kirkland announced its $500M AI investment and multi-year partnership with Palantir last month. The firm confirmed its platform is model agnostic, meaning it can swap foundation models without rebuilding and is protected against vendor lock-in.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges opened a new Boston office across two floors of Lyrik Back Bay, bringing its footprint in the city to 37,379 square feet. Holland & Knight moved into Nashville's Symphony Place. Kelley Drye relocated its San Diego office from La Jolla to a new space in Del Mar.

Practices

M&A and Capital Markets

Dealmakers are facing a busy pipeline across tech, food and beverage, PE-backed healthcare, and European banking. SpaceX's $60B acquisition of Cursor AI and Yum! Brands' $2.7B sale of Pizza Hut to LongRange Capital and Yum China are generating sell-side, financing, and post-close integration work. In healthcare, Thoreau Group agreed to acquire Ensemble Health at about $12B. Germany rejected UniCredit's bid for Commerzbank, citing the lender's importance to the national economy, a signal that cross-border European bank M&A faces significant political headwinds. Huntsman and Olin agreed to merge in an all-stock chemicals deal. On the capital markets side, taking a page off of Alphabet’s playbook, Nvidia is raising $25B in its first bond sale since 2021, more than doubling its debt load. In China, DeepSeek closed a record $7B+ funding round at a $50B+ valuation under an unusual LP structure giving CEO Liang Wenfeng full control, with Tencent, CATL, JD.com, and NetEase among the backers.

Selected Press:

Regulatory, AI, and Litigation

Regulatory mandates around AI are shifting quickly. Anthropic senior leaders met with top Trump administration officials Monday to discuss a resolution to the export control directive that forced the company to suspend access to its latest models, a swift and meaningful development after Friday's initial ban. Separately, a class action was filed against Anthropic alleging it misleads premium subscription customers about usage limits. Microsoft faces a shareholder suit alleging the company failed to disclose slowing Azure growth and the cost of AI infrastructure spending. In a win for OpenAI, a federal judge dismissed xAI's trade secret lawsuit, ruling that xAI failed to show OpenAI induced a former xAI engineer to divulge confidential information. Florida AG James Uthmeier sued TikTok for violating the state's law barring children under 14 from creating accounts.

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Where the Work Sits

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The M&A pipeline is generating mandates across tech, healthcare, and cross-border banking. SpaceX-Cursor, Yum-Pizza Hut, and Ensemble Health each involve sell-side advisory, regulatory review, financing, and integration work. Germany's rejection of UniCredit-Commerzbank adds a political-risk dimension to European bank M&A that will keep antitrust and regulatory counsel busy.

AI regulatory work is expanding on multiple fronts. Anthropic's negotiations with the White House create advisory mandates around export controls, national security review, and compliance. The Anthropic subscription class action, Microsoft shareholder suit, and xAI-OpenAI ruling each test different legal theories around AI disclosure, trade secrets, and consumer protection — areas where litigation and regulatory practices are building caseloads.

Capital markets and financing work is active as Nvidia's $25B offering and DeepSeek's $7B+ round signal sustained appetite for AI-related debt and equity issuance. Firms advising on structured finance, bond offerings, and venture transactions tied to AI infrastructure are well positioned.

Global Markets

As G7 leaders are split over Trump's insistence that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen by Friday, European allies have made clear they don't share his optimism, and no official document has been released. Dealmakers’ attention now turns to the Fed's first rate decision under Chair Kevin Warsh on Wednesday as Goldman Sachs cut all remaining 2026 rate cuts from its forecast, shifting expected easing into 2027. Global asset manager client are keeping an Eye on the BOJ benchmark rate as they seek to capitalize across Japanese industries.

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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.