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Sullivan & Cromwell pulled a four-partner private equity team from Kirkland, while Orrick, Jones Day and Norton Rose Fulbright added laterals of their own. Investors, meanwhile, are shifting away from Arizona’s law-firm ownership program toward management services organizations.
On the client side, the 10-year Treasury closed above 5% for the first time since 2007, and the Fed is set to raise rates today under Chair Kevin Warsh, with the Bank of Japan likely to follow this week. OpenAI is in early talks to raise at a $1.2tn valuation, while Anthropic’s call for an antitrust waiver to slow AI development fell flat in Washington.
Oil held above $105 after a Houthi strike on a Saudi airbase kept the East-West pipeline offline.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-S&C takes four Kirkland PE partners; Orrick, Jones Day, Norton Rose, Hogan Lovells Cadwalader and Baker Donelson add laterals
-Investors pivot from Arizona’s ABS program to MSOs; a Burford executive launches an MSO-backed, “AI-native” law firm
-Weil departures near 30 for the year as corporate chief Michael Aiello’s team heads to Cravath
-EQT and Norway’s NBIM bid for Acciona Energia; Brookfield nears a $6bn Center Parcs recap; Essity preps a $3bn tissue sale
-OpenAI eyes a $1.2tn round; Syngenta and Altera file for IPOs; KKR’s private high-grade debt hits $80bn
-The 10-year closes above 5% as the Fed lines up a hike under Warsh and the BoJ prepares to move
-Anthropic’s antitrust-waiver plea falls flat; Microsoft-Activision’s $250m settlement stalls in Delaware
-3M, DuPont and Honeywell must face PFAS claims; UMG sues DistroKid over AI “slop”
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Sullivan & Cromwell hired private equity M&A partners Hamed Meshki, Luke Guerra, Guirgis Nasief and Michael Chung from Kirkland & Ellis; Meshki will become S&C’s global PE head and a Los Angeles office co-lead.
Orrick hired former DOJ Antitrust Division litigator Aaron Teitelbaum as a partner in Washington.
Jones Day hired cybersecurity, privacy and data-protection litigator Alexander Southwell from McDermott Will & Schulte in New York.
Norton Rose Fulbright took an eight-lawyer real estate team from Kasowitz in New York.
Hogan Lovells Cadwalader added banking and loan finance partner Jakarri Hamlin from Mayer Brown in Los Angeles.
Baker Donelson brought on equipment leasing finance shareholder Ken Weinberg in Birmingham.
On the client side, Delta named a new legal chief, and Kimberly-Clark and Dollar General also appointed new legal heads.
What today's moves tell us: Big Law firms are not reaching down-market. Instead, they are trading partners and paying up for established talent across private equity, antitrust and cybersecurity.
Check our Rolodex newsletter delivered on Monday at 7:30 am for a weekly overview of the lateral market and executive moves.
Operations and Strategy
The business of law is restructuring around outside capital and AI, even as the lateral market keeps thinning benches at firms that once looked untouchable.
Investors and firms increasingly want to own law firms’ back offices through management services organizations rather than Arizona’s alternative business structure program. Private equity firms and litigation funders have taken an interest in MSOs, which are popular with personal injury, estate, immigration and insurance-defense firms and new committee rules, scrutiny from other states, and the compliance load of running an ABS firm are pushing capital toward the MSO route. In the latest sign of this trend, a senior Burford Capital executive making the same bet through the launching of an MSO-backed, “AI-native” firm focused on employment disputes.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges has now lost close to 30 partners this year, with corporate chief Michael Aiello leading a team to Cravath. The run of exits is a reminder that even elite franchises are exposed when rivals guarantee books and build platforms.
Practices
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Dealmakers are leaning into carve-outs, take-privates and infrastructure plays, and sponsors are still setting the pace. Complex, cross-border energy and carve-out deals are where elite counsel and their sponsor clients tend to lean in, pricing risk others avoid — which keeps M&A, financing and antitrust mandates flowing even as borrowing costs climb.
Selected Press:
EQT and Norway’s NBIM launched a joint bid for Spain’s Acciona Energia, valued at $13.7bn including debt, with Ardian also weighing an offer.
Brookfield is nearing a recapitalization of UK holiday-park operator Center Parcs at a $6bn valuation.
Essity is preparing a $3bn sale of its consumer tissue business after activist Cevian Capital took a stake.
GSK will buy a cancer drug from China’s Chimagen Biosciences for $750m, and Grab agreed to buy 60% of BNPL platform Atome Financial for $1.5bn.
Kenya’s High Court invalidated the $1.9bn sale of a Safaricom stake to Vodacom, and Musk floated a $3.5tn SpaceX-Tesla merger.
Capital Markets and AI Finance
With the 10-year above 5%, issuers are pulling financing forward and private credit keeps taking share. Recent cycles have shown that credit stress usually starts as a funding and redemption problem rather than a credit-quality one, which is why private credit’s growing footprint runs through fund-formation and workout teams first. Treasurers, sponsors and bankers are timing IPOs and refinancings against a narrowing window.
Selected Press:
OpenAI is in early talks to raise a pre-IPO round at a $1.2tn valuation.
Syngenta confidentially filed for a $5bn Hong Kong IPO, and Silver Lake- and Intel-backed Altera filed for a $2bn IPO.
KKR’s private high-grade debt deals have reached $80bn this year; Blackstone’s Jon Gray said flows will return to private credit, while a Carlyle executive likened AI financing to pre-2008 mortgages.
Truist will sell $5.5bn of auto loans as it exits near-prime lending, and Goldman Sachs Alternatives raised $11.7bn across two PE funds.
Litigation and Investigations
Enforcement and mass-tort exposure are converting into defense and advisory mandates across product liability, white-collar and IP. Multi-defendant, multi-jurisdiction exposure is where sophisticated litigation and white-collar teams reflect the reason behind their premium rates.
Selected Press:
A federal judge ruled 3M, DuPont and Honeywell and others must face Connecticut firefighters’ claims that “forever chemicals” in their gear raised cancer risk.
Universal Music sued distributor DistroKid over AI-generated “slop,” and Bristol Myers and Ono sued Amgen to block a proposed Opdivo biosimilar.
A Delaware judge held off on approving Microsoft’s $250m settlement of a shareholder suit over its Activision acquisition.
Accenture will pay $25m to settle US DEI allegations, and Abbott agreed to pay $385m over its 2022 infant-formula recall.
Regulatory and AI Governance
The AI-safety debate has turned into an antitrust and IP problem in Washington. Boards and AI developers are weighing self-imposed guardrails against regulators who are skeptical of (collusion) coordination.
Selected Press:
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call for an antitrust waiver to let firms coordinate a slowdown drew opposition across the spectrum; FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said everyone should be “deeply suspicious.” Microsoft issued a provisional code supporting slower AI development.
The EPA repealed Biden-era carbon limits on power plants, citing surging AI electricity demand; the move is expected to be challenged.
The EU plans to propose social-media limits for children under 15, tightening oversight of Meta and Alphabet.
Where the Work Sits
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Today’s markets touch the sectors where premium legal work concentrates: energy transition and infrastructure (EQT-Acciona, EPA carbon repeal, Center Parcs recap), healthcare and life sciences (GSK-Chimagen, Bristol Myers-Amgen biosimilar fight, Abbott formula settlement), technology and AI (OpenAI pre-IPO, Anthropic antitrust debate, Universal Music v. DistroKid, EU child-safety rules), and financial sponsors and capital markets (KKR private credit, Goldman PE fundraise, Truist auto-loan securitization, Syngenta and Altera IPO filings).
Cross-border regulatory friction, from Kenya’s Safaricom ruling to the EU’s platform proposals, adds a layer of international-trade and sovereign-risk advisory work.
Global Markets
Dealmakers are pausing to wait for the US Fed to provide guidance on money cost and supply. CFOs and bankers are ready to adjust model inputs to reprice risk and ROIs, likely affecting upcoming term sheets.
Today is Fed day and the 10-year Treasury yield closed above 5% for the first time since 2007, settling near 5.03%. Markets price virtually no chance of a rate cut this week and are betting that Kevin Warsh’s Fed will hike rates by a quarter basis point.
With investment-grade spreads hovering near 105 basis points over Treasuries, tight by historical standards, high-yield spreads sit around 370 basis points, leveraged-loan default rates have ticked up to roughly 3.5%, concentrated in healthcare and media.
With Oil trading at around $103 USD, energy clients are sounding the alarm about the energy crisis becoming unsustainable as demand for derivative products could significantly slow down due to oil prices and inflation.
Stories to Watch
Fed decision (Today): A hold is near-certain, but the dot plot and Powell’s press conference will set the tone for whether the 10-year stays above 5%.
OpenAI valuation and structure: A $1.2tn pre-IPO round would reset comps for every AI company and intensify the governance debate around capped-profit conversions.
Anthropic antitrust-waiver fallout: Amodei’s proposal has united critics left and right; watch for DOJ or FTC statements this week.
EQT-Acciona battle: A contested $13.7bn renewables take-private with a rival bidder (Ardian) could become the year’s marquee energy-infra deal.
EPA carbon-rule repeal litigation: Environmental groups are expected to file suit quickly; the case will test how far the administration can go in rolling back climate regulation.
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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