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Clifford Chance rehired Paul Weiss’s head of European leveraged finance, Taner Hassan, and Silvia Menendez two years after they left, while Gibson Dunn, Willkie and Morrison & Foerster kept lifting partners as a fund-finance market nearing $1tn drives firms to hunt for scarce talent. The American Bar Association is fighting Trump attacks, funding cuts and a challenge to its law-school accreditation power.
On the client side, private equity is stuck: buyout firms hold a record pile of aging, unsold companies, private-credit defaults are climbing, and managers are turning to secondaries and consolidation for liquidity. Goldman Sachs is in talks to buy a $37bn credit firm, and Todd Boehly’s Lukoil bid threatens a Carlyle deal.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Clifford Chance rehires Paul Weiss’s European lev-fin head; Gibson Dunn, Willkie, MoFo and Baker Botts add partners
-Fund-finance market nears $1tn as firms scramble for talent; the ABA fights Trump attacks and an accreditation challenge
-Private equity holds more than 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8tn as fund lives stretch toward 15 years
-Fitch reports private-credit defaults hit 6.3%, driven by ‘soft’ PIK and extension deals
-Goldman eyes $37bn Palmer Square; Korea’s KIC sells $1bn of PE stakes
-Royal Caribbean-Sandals $6bn, CD&R and Warburg-Canaccord, Sysco’s $17bn bond
-Brightline heads to Chapter 11 as Carlyle’s Syniverse and AMC overhaul debt
-Treasury two-year sells at 4.79% as another Fed hike gets priced; oil dips below $100
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Clifford Chance rehired leveraged-finance partners Taner Hassan, Paul Weiss’s head of European leveraged finance, and Silvia Menendez, two years after they left; both join in October, Hassan in London and Menendez splitting London and Madrid. The move follows a run of Paul Weiss London departures, including its European M&A head to Kirkland & Ellis in April.
Gibson Dunn hired fund-finance partner Andrew Hogan into its finance and investment-funds practice in New York.
Willkie recruited asset-management partner Shreyas Jhaveri from Kirkland & Ellis in New York.
Morrison & Foerster added former DOJ official Paul Perkins as a partner and chair of its False Claims Act practice in Washington.
Mayer Brown hired white-collar partner Albert 'BJ' Stieglitz from Alston & Bird in Washington, and Baker Botts took energy-transactions partner Mark Schlackman from King & Spalding in Houston.
K&L Gates added state-and-local-tax partner Jeffrey Reed in New York, and Houlihan Lokey named Prabha Sipi Bhandari chief legal officer.
What today's moves tell us: the lateral market is chasing the money into fund finance, private funds and white-collar defense, with a near-$1tn fund-finance market pulling specialists across firms even as US and UK firms keep raiding each other in London.
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Operations and Strategy
A near-$1tn fund-finance market and mounting pressure on the ABA are reshaping where firms invest and how the profession defends itself.
The fund-finance market is approaching $1tn, and firms are competing hard for a thin pool of specialists, hiring from rivals and retraining existing lawyers to keep up with demand from funds and their lenders. Gibson Dunn’s New York hire (Andrew Hogan) is one more sign that subscription lines, NAV facilities and GP financing have become a franchise practice worth building a deep bench around.
The American Bar Association’s new president, Barbara Howard, is steering the 148-year-old group through Trump-administration attacks, steady membership drops and funding cuts that forced layoffs, along with a diminished role vetting judicial candidates. A test comes today, when the ABA’s accreditation arm appears before an Education Department advisory committee to keep its recognition as the national accreditor of law schools, an authority President Trump argues it should not hold.
A Bloomberg Law report adds to the strain: nearly half of about 1,150 attorneys surveyed this summer said their well-being had worsened since the start of 2025, citing burnout, difficulty disconnecting, and caregiving pressure that falls hardest on women.
Practices
Private Capital and Credit
The private-equity model is jammed: capital that went in during the cheap-money years is not coming out, and managers, sponsors and their LPs are reaching for every liquidity tool available. As one Ropes & Gray partner put it, asset managers that can offer ‘one-stop-shop’, multi-asset-class capabilities are best placed to win a larger share of an LP’s allocation, which is why consolidation and secondaries are generating steady funds, credit and workout mandates for the firms advising the dealmaking elite.
Selected Press:
Private equity is stuck in limbo: buyout firms hold a record volume of aging, unsold companies. Bloomberg counts more than 32,000 worth $3.8tn — with median holding periods near seven years and fund lives stretching toward 15, pushing investors into secondaries and continuation vehicles.
Fitch reports US private-credit defaults reached 6.3% in the 12 months through August, driven by ‘soft’ defaults (PIK interest, negotiated extensions and restructurings) rather than bankruptcies, a sign of deferred stress from maturing, floating-rate debt.
Goldman Sachs is in talks to buy $37bn credit manager Palmer Square, extending a consolidation wave that already includes EQT’s purchase of Coller Capital and CVC’s of Marathon Asset Management.
Korea Investment Corp. is selling more than $1bn of private-equity stakes through PJT Partners, another sign of large LPs seeking liquidity in a frozen exit market.
M&A and Deals
Strategics and sponsors are still moving despite expensive financing, with contested bids, carve-outs and cross-border targets keeping the pipeline full. Boards and general counsel are weighing how hard to push, and dealmakers read the flow as reason to keep M&A, antitrust and financing mandates running.
Selected Press:
Royal Caribbean is nearing a deal to buy all-inclusive operator Sandals Resorts International at a $6bn valuation.
CD&R and Warburg Pincus are in advanced talks to acquire Canaccord Genuity’s UK wealth arm for more than $1.35bn.
IDP Education rejected a sweetened $494m takeover offer from Blackstone despite a 55% premium.
Todd Boehly secured US support for his bid for the $10bn international assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil, threatening a rival Carlyle deal.
Shippers and unions are lobbying Trump to block Union Pacific’s $72bn merger with Norfolk Southern.
Capital Markets and Financing
Debt and equity markets are open but pricey, and borrowers are rushing to lock in funding. Sponsors, CFOs and treasurers are pulling deals forward, feeding leveraged-finance and capital-markets desks even as the cost of capital rises.
Selected Press:
Sysco drew $90bn of orders for a $17bn bond sale backing its $29bn purchase of Jetro Restaurant Depot.
Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo are marketing a $49bn debt package to back Paramount’s $110bn Warner Bros. takeover.
AMC is seeking $4bn in junk debt to overhaul its capital structure, and Goldman kicked off a $1.1bn junk-bond sale for a Blue Owl-sponsored CoreWeave data center.
Accelevation is seeking $720m at a $5.4bn valuation in its IPO, and Nvidia-backed Iambic Therapeutics filed to list.
India’s NSE drew Life Insurance Corp. as lead bidder in its $2.4bn IPO.
Restructuring and Distressed
Distress is building at the edges (rail, telecom and leveraged credit) and creditors are organizing. The pattern points to more liability-management, workout and creditor-rights work for New York and London desks.
Selected Press:
Brightline is set to file for Chapter 11 with $350m in new loans from bond insurer Assured Guaranty.
Carlyle’s Syniverse tapped Jefferies for a debt overhaul.
A litigation committee of top Altice creditors is taking a harder line in the telecom’s restructuring.
Where the Work Sits
***
Recent credit scares have tended to begin as funding and liquidity problems rather than credit-quality blowups, and today’s mix (Fitch’s 6.3% default rate built on PIK and extensions, private equity’s frozen exits, and LPs like Korea Investment Corp. selling stakes) fits that mold, sending high-end matters to funds, secondaries, private-credit and workout teams first.
Consolidation among managers, from Goldman’s talks for Palmer Square to the EQT and CVC deals, plus a fund-finance market nearing $1tn, keeps asset-management M&A, fund formation and finance lawyers busy and helps explain the run on specialist talent.
With the two-year at 4.79% and another hike in play, borrowers pushing deals (Sysco’s $17bn bond, AMC’s $4bn overhaul and Brightline’s Chapter 11) feed leveraged-finance, capital-markets and restructuring desks, while Carlyle’s Syniverse and the Altice creditor fight point to more liability-management and creditor-rights mandates.
Contested and cross-border M&A (Royal Caribbean-Sandals, CD&R and Warburg-Canaccord, Boehly’s sanctioned-asset Lukoil bid and the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern fight) drive M&A, antitrust, sanctions and deal-litigation work well past signing.
Global Markets
Rates keep climbing even as stocks set records, and oil is the swing factor. Executives and treasurers are weighing a bond market where the two-year Treasury sold at 4.79%, the highest since 2024, with prediction markets leaning toward another Fed hike this year and Oaktree’s Howard Marks warning of US fiscal indiscipline.
As previous cycles have played out, refinancings at these levels tip into liability-management and workout files, so dealmakers are positioning to pull issuance forward while the window holds, and sponsors are watching whether Iran’s Hormuz offer holds oil down.
Selected Press:
The US Treasury sold two-year notes at 4.787%, the highest yield since May 2024, as prediction markets lean toward another Fed hike in 2026.
Oaktree’s Howard Marks said the US shows a ‘total lack of fiscal discipline,’ and hedge funds pulled back from the basis trade as bond gaps vanished.
Oil slid below $100 after Iran signaled it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the US eases pressure.
The ECB warned euro-area inflation could stay elevated into mid-2027 after its September rate rise.
The Nasdaq-100 closed at a record, its first since June, even as the riskiest stocks lost their edge to higher rates.
Stories to Watch
ABA accreditation hearing (today) — an Education Department advisory committee weighs the ABA's recognition as law-school accreditor, a test of Trump's push to strip it.
Fed path and Durable Goods Orders (Friday) — with the two-year at 4.79% and markets pricing another 2026 hike, watch data and Fed speakers for the refinancing outlook.
Trump-Xi dinner and UN General Assembly (this week) — tech leaders attend; trade, AI and Iran diplomacy in focus.
Strait of Hormuz — Iran's offer to reopen within seven days will steer oil prices and energy-sanctions risk.
ADARx and Accelevation IPOs — fresh tests of appetite for biotech and data-center listings.
McDonald's investor day (Wednesday) — a turnaround plan after soft US same-store sales.
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 content that highlights demand for legal services. Certain production processes may be supported by proprietary AI tools and are subject to human editorial judgement and review.
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