Good afternoon,
Monday's lateral board ran deep across offices. Yesterday’s highlights include Paul Weiss welcoming Goodwin's Supreme Court and appellate chief William Jay in Washington, Gibson Dunn pulling energy private equity dealmaker Clay Brett from Baker Botts into its Houston office, and Milbank setting shop in Chicago by hiring White & Case project-finance leader Nadav Klugman. On the associate side, Milbank's associate pay increase is testing the future of lockstep.
On the client side, private capital is bending around a cash crunch. Buyout firms are using structured equity to manufacture distributions against a $3.8tn backlog of unsold assets, non-traded BDC fundraising fell 82%, and shareholders are suing JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley over their buyout advisory roles. In markets, oil fell before Scott Bessent's Iran “economic D-Day,” and the Treasury weighed tapping its $950bn cash account to buy back bonds.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Paul Weiss lands Goodwin's SCOTUS chief; Gibson Dunn, Mayer Brown and Milbank stock energy and project-finance benches
-Milbank opens in Chicago as associate pay breaks from lockstep and firms add AI-focused C-suite talent
-Private equity turns to structured equity to fund distributions against a $3.8tn exit backlog
-Private credit pivots as non-traded BDC fundraising falls 82% and investors pull a record $23bn
-Shareholders sue JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley as Delaware's overhaul leaves deal advisers exposed
-Citigroup and Wells Fargo eye bank M&A while JPMorgan and BofA sit at the deposit cap
-First Brands ordered into liquidation; Braskem strikes an $11bn out-of-court restructuring
-Bessent unveils Iran “economic D-Day” as oil slips and the Treasury eyes bond buybacks
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Paul Weiss hired Supreme Court and appellate partner William Jay from Goodwin to lead its SCOTUS and appellate practice in Washington.
Gibson Dunn poached energy private equity partner Clay Brett, former co-head of Baker Botts's energy PE practice, into its Houston office.
White & Case welcomed real estate M&A partner Joseph Sultan from Kirkland & Ellis into its global M&A and real estate group in Miami.
Milbank hired project, energy and infrastructure finance partner Nadav Klugman from White & Case as the first partner in its new Chicago office.
Mayer Brown hired leveraged finance and private capital partner Justin Hewett from DLA Piper in Houston.
A&O Shearman welcomed M&A and private equity partner Steven Tyndall from Morrison Foerster in Austin.
Squire Patton Boggs brought in former FTC lawyer Ernest Eric Elmore as of counsel in its global antitrust and competition practice in Washington.
Arnold & Porter announced Brendan Clegg is joint the firm as a financial services partner in Washington.
Stris & Maher grabbed a four-partner intellectual property team — Mieke Malmberg, Sarah Spires, Steven Hartsell and Jaime Olin — in Los Angeles and Dallas.
Alston & Bird named litigation co-lead William Jordan as its next managing partner, effective January 2027.
What today's moves tell us: Monday's lateral chess board was heavy on energy, project finance, antitrust and financial-services benches. The team-hire pattern held too, with Milbank building a new office around a single practice leader and a four-partner IP group moving together.
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Operations and Strategy
Firms are spending on offices, compensation, and management talent at once, and treating a larger, more automated business as a driving force that reworks the business structure.
Milbank opened a Chicago office, its first new US market in years, anchored by White & Case's global project development and finance co-chair Nadav Klugman, with more hires under consideration. The move pairs a marquee project-finance name with a city that feeds energy, infrastructure and private-capital work.
Pay is fracturing quietly. Milbank's latest bump to associate base pay and bonuses may trigger another round of matches, but the Am Law 200 is drifting from a single lockstep scale toward customized bonuses, lateral sign-on incentives and forgivable loans. For management committees, the test is not so much about generating work as much as it is about aligning pay, structure, and process, so a bigger, more automated firm turns hours into higher profits.
To manage profitable growth, firms are adding management muscle. Simpson Thacher, Paul Hastings, Vinson & Elkins and Mayer Brown spent the summer adding senior business professionals in AI and technology, talent and communications. Office real estate is part of the recruiting/cost/profitability story as Am Law 200 firms paid more for offices in 2025 even as they took less space. The thin construction pipeline and competition for premium buildings are driving firms to use high-end space as a recruiting tool.
Practices
Private Equity and Credit
Sponsors and credit managers are working through a liquidity squeeze, and the workarounds are where the mandates sit. Buyout firms are turning to structured equity (hybrid securities from the likes of Apollo and Bain Capital) to generate distributions on portfolio companies they cannot sell at target prices; the unsold assets behind the pressure are estimated to total $3.8tn.
Private credit is pivoting but the market has seen this pattern before: strain tends to start as a funding and redemption problem rather than a credit-quality one. Today an 82% drop in non-traded BDC fundraising alongside a record $23bn of redemptions fits that pattern, which is why the work is flowing to fund-liquidity, NAV-lending and workout desks first.
Selected Press:
Apollo and Bain Capital are providing structured-equity financings, including CVC's investment in Syntegon and Power Home Remodeling, letting sponsors return capital without a sale.
Non-traded BDC fundraising fell 82% year over year to $2bn in Q2 as investors sought a record $23bn of redemptions, pushing managers toward investment-grade, data-center and AI lending.
A federal judge rejected First Brands' bankruptcy-payout plan and ordered the auto-parts supplier into liquidation.
Braskem reached an $11bn out-of-court restructuring with its main creditors.
Financial Institutions and M&A
Boards and bank general counsel are weighing a bank-M&A opening against fresh adviser-liability risk, a mix that keeps regulatory, antitrust and litigation teams busy on the same deals. Delamakers are also tracking a steady trend outside financial institutions: the sell-side pipeline in energy and chemicals.
Selected Press:
Citigroup and Wells Fargo are seen as positioned for a large bank acquisition, while JPMorgan and Bank of America are blocked by the 10% national-deposit cap; CNBC identified five regional targets that fit.
Shareholders sued JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley in Delaware Chancery Court over their roles advising on buyouts, after last year's Delaware overhaul shielded directors but not their bankers.
Siemens Energy is pursuing a $12bn sale of its steam-turbine business, with CVC, EQT and Bain Capital as possible bidders.
Exxon Mobil, LyondellBasell, Apollo and Kuwait Petroleum's chemicals arm are circling Shell's US chemicals unit, which could fetch $8bn.
Hugging Face, the AI developer platform, is exploring a sale at about a $13bn valuation.
Energy and Infrastructure
Executives and project-finance counsel are tracking long-dated energy bets and automation that reshape capital and permitting needs, the cross-disciplinary work that combines power, financing and regulatory teams.
Selected Press:
Eni is deepening its nuclear-fusion bet, calling it a possible "next refinery," backing Commonwealth Fusion Systems (which has raised about $4bn) with a roughly $1bn power-purchase agreement and a UK Atomic Energy Authority joint venture.
Exxon Mobil plans to automate half its Permian rigs by 2028 as it targets nearly 40% production growth by 2030.
Where the Work Sits
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Restructuring and special situations are the clearest demand line today. In past cycles, the gap between routine refinancing and full restructuring narrows once financing costs stay high and exits stall, and the structured-equity workarounds. The First Brands liquidation and Braskem's $11bn out-of-court deal point in the same direction: toward liability-management, creditor-rights, NAV-lending and workout mandates for New York and London teams.
Private equity liquidity engineering is another fee pool. With a $3.8tn exit backlog and LPs pushing for distributions, the turn to structured equity and continuation-style solutions feeds fund-formation, secondaries and fiduciary-conflict work, much of it high-end and bespoke.
Financial-institutions work is cutting two ways. A possible bank-M&A opening for Citigroup and Wells Fargo points to merger-review, deposit-cap and financing mandates, while the Delaware suits against JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley open a lane of adviser-liability and fiduciary litigation that will shape how banks paper future deals.
Energy and project finance keep bringing fees. Eni's fusion commitment, Exxon's Permian automation and private credit's move into data-center and AI lending keep power, project-finance and regulatory teams busy on long-dated builds where financing turns on committed power and permitting.
Global Markets
Trade and sanctions are driving the market today, as clients are positioning for a Treasury willing to lean on the bond market, and the government taking a harder stance on Iran.
Treasurers and boards are stress-testing exposure as Bessent signals the Treasury may tap its roughly $950bn cash account to fund larger bond buybacks at the same time as it rolls out an Iran isolation plan that threatens consequences for countries still trading with Tehran. Economic statecraft has become the operating system for cross-border markets, not a side risk, so boards are pricing sanctions, tariffs and export controls into deal decisions as routinely as synergies.
Selected Press:
The Treasury could draw on its ~$950bn General Account to fund larger long-term bond buybacks, giving Bessent more room to press yields.
Bessent is unveiling the administration's broadest economic measures against Iran, with secondary-sanction risk reaching trading partners; Iran blacklisted 45 tankers over Strait of Hormuz rules.
Brent crude fell about 1.8% to near $93 and WTI 2.3% to about $85 ahead of the sanctions.
Hedge funds ramped up dollar shorts ahead of the fiscal plan, and the dollar had its best day against the Canadian loonie since June after trade talks failed.
Stories to Watch
Bessent Iran rollout (this week) — the economic-isolation plan and any secondary-sanctions detail reaching China, India and Europe.
Core PCE (Wed, Aug 26) — the Fed's preferred inflation gauge and a read on tariff pass-through.
Nvidia earnings (Wed, Aug 26) — the marquee test of AI capex that underpins data-center financing.
Warsh at Jackson Hole (Fri, Aug 27) — the Fed chair's keynote as the Treasury presses on yields.
First Brands liquidation — the wind-down and insider-suit funding plan set a marker for distressed auto-supply credit.
Deere labor talks — the UAW's rejection of a contract extension sets up a 2027 labor & Employment fight and supply-chain risk.
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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