Good afternoon and happy Friday,

BigLaw Markets will be off on Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7th and will resume regular delivery on Tuesday Sept. 8th. Now to the markets.

The lateral market ran hot in London and fund finance: Paul Hastings took fund-finance partner Daniel Margolis from Stephenson Harwood, Gibson Dunn grabbed a two-partner data-centre team from White & Case, and Cahill Gordon is set to lose a three-partner banking group. Sidley made an AI seat mandatory for every London trainee.

On the client side, a Wachtell salary-cap investigation just cost Steve Ballmer roughly $50m and the Los Angeles Clippers five first-round picks, a reminder that firm-run probes now carry franchise-level stakes. EQT struck a $2bn deal for insurance broker McGill, sponsors kept deploying, and UK regulators sued Apple for $2.7bn.

On the markets side, rising yields are pushing companies toward a September bond rush, with Wall Street bracing for up to $250bn of high-grade supply.

Now, on to what matters for your practice today.

Today’s Talking Points

-Wachtell's NBA probe costs Ballmer ~$50m and the Clippers five draft picks and a $30m fine

-Paul Hastings, Gibson Dunn, and Squire Patton Boggs build in London and DC; Cahill loses a banking trio

-Sidley makes a four-month AI seat mandatory for London trainees; Baker McKenzie ties AI training to ROI

-EQT buys McGill for $2bn; Sidley lands a second Apollo mandate as sponsors keep deploying

-Rising yields push a September bond rush of up to $250bn; Cerba, Equinox, and VW restructure

-UK sues Apple for $2.7bn; Korea moves to protect minority shareholders in M&A

-Leon Black fights Epstein subpoenas; KPMG flags a Guggenheim unit's controls

-Bond selloff drives K-shaped construction; ECB seen making a final hike next week

Talent Strategy

Latest Moves

What today's moves tell us: London and fund finance are the live battlegrounds, and ex-government enforcers remain a prize, as firms build disputes, restructuring, and trade benches on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

Firms are wiring AI into how they train juniors and expanding across Europe, even as UK deal fees pile up at the top.

Sidley Austin overhauled its London training contract, adding a mandatory four-month rotation in its AI Knowledge Lab under a new six-seat program. Trainees will work on live assignments alongside knowledge, data, and AI specialists, build reusable tools, and learn to judge where AI output ends and lawyer judgment begins. Sidley says it is the first London firm to make a dedicated AI seat mandatory. Baker McKenzie is treating firmwide AI training as the prerequisite for measuring return on its technology spend, on the logic that tools cannot prove value if lawyers do not use them well, while conceding ROI is still hard to quantify as vendor pricing evolves.

The build-out continued in Europe. Osborne Clarke opened its 25th and 26th offices, a four-partner team in Luxembourg and a White & Case partner in Frankfurt. At the top of the UK market, Slaughter and May booked more than £110m in fees advising on five of the year's ten biggest UK target deals, with filings also flagging fees for Linklaters, Clifford Chance, and Freshfields. The through-line is a business-model question firms still have not yet settled: whether they are selling hours or selling outcomes, and how they get paid as AI compresses the routine work but not the value of the advice.

Practices

Private Equity and M&A

Sponsors kept deploying into recurring-revenue and carve-out targets, and dealmakers are pairing platform buys with financing and integration work. EQT agreed to buy a majority stake in London specialist insurance broker McGill and Partners from Warburg Pincus, valuing it near $2bn including debt, with management retaining a stake and US expansion planned. Insurance services, energy, and secondaries are where the checks are going, a signal of steady sell-side, financing, and post-close mandates.

Selected Press:

Restructuring and Private Credit

Higher-for-longer rates are reshaping dealmaking calendars. With investment-grade yields above 5.5% and spreads still tight, treasurers are weighing whether to pull borrowing forward before conditions turn; for context, Wall Street expects $190bn to $250bn of high-grade supply in September. The market has seen this sequence before and this week’s names and moves fit the mold.

Selected Press:

Antitrust and Regulatory

Competition risk kept widening beyond deal review into platform conduct and shareholder protection, giving general counsel more to track across jurisdictions. UK regulators sued Apple for $2.7bn over app-tracking rules they say favor Apple’s own ad ecosystem, while Korean lawmakers moved to rewrite M&A rules to protect minority shareholders, a change that would reshape deal structuring for anyone buying into Korean targets.

Selected Press:

White Collar and Investigations

Firm-run probes and enforcement exposure are generating high-stakes defense and indemnity work. A Wachtell salary-cap investigation led the NBA to strip the Clippers of five first-round picks and impose a $30m fine and a yearlong suspension on Steve Ballmer that his O’Melveny counsel says cost roughly $50m; Ballmer reimbursed at least six firms hired at the league’s demand. Investigations counsel are busy elsewhere too.

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Where the Work Sits

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The lateral wave keeps feeding recruitment, conflicts, restrictive-covenant, and client-transition work, with moves concentrated in London, fund finance, and data-centre infrastructure showing where firms expect the next mandates. Cahill's banking exits and the Norton Rose and Squire Patton Boggs builds add retention and integration questions on top.

If prior cycles are a guide, a jump in long rates routes work toward refinancing, amendments, and liability management long before defaults arrive, and the September issuance rush, Cerba's court-supervised process, and the Equinox and Volkswagen restructurings point straight at capital-markets, direct-lending, and creditor-rights teams. KPMG's warning on a Guggenheim unit keeps insurance-linked credit work live.

The AI build-out is as much a financing and siting problem as a technology one. Data-centre hiring, hyperscaler funding needs, and the sector's small footprint in a shrinking construction market put a premium on project-finance, capital-markets, energy, and real-estate lawyers who can structure around capacity and permitting limits.

The Apple suit and Korea's minority-shareholder push feed competition and structuring work, while the Wachtell-driven NBA penalties, the Leon Black subpoena fight, and the HSF Kramer malpractice claim keep investigations, professional-liability, and indemnity teams engaged.

Global Markets

Dealmakers are timing financing windows around a bond selloff that keeps lifting yields, treasurers are moving to lock funding before spreads climb, and boards weigh how far central banks will go against a construction slowdown and mortgages drifting back toward 7%.

Selected Press:

Stories to Watch

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.