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Weil Gotshal & Manges is trying to wind down without filing for bankruptcy, a path that runs through a payment plan with its creditors and echoes Stroock’s two-year dissolution. Its soon-jobless restructuring and funds lawyers are already feeding a talent war: Gibson Dunn is set to take a 37-lawyer Weil team in London, and Simpson Thacher is lining up a London private-equity partner.
On the client side, a $300 billion wall of private-equity debt comes due in 2028 and 2029, Ares is steering away from financing AI chips, and Microsoft drew $115 billion of orders for its first bond sale in a decade. Dealmaking stayed busy, with DoorDash buying Instacart, Thrive Holdings taking ADT private, and BP’s board split over a breakup.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Weil aims to avoid bankruptcy through a creditor payment plan, and its restructuring talent is up for grabs
-Gibson Dunn is set to take a 37-lawyer Weil funds team in London; Simpson Thacher is lining up a London PE partner
-Gibson Dunn adds tax partner Jens Hafemann in Frankfurt
-White & Case holds back its newest AI legal agent as lawyers resist and clients push
-A $300B private-equity debt wall looms for 2028-29; Ares avoids AI-chip financing; Microsoft lands a $25B bond
-Deal flow: DoorDash-Instacart ($17B), Thrive-ADT ($7.6B), BMPS rebuffs Intesa’s rivals, BP weighs a breakup
-Q3 GDP runs hot at 3.4% as the ECB and BOJ hold and eye December hikes; the Bank of Canada lifts rates
-Watch: Exxon and Chevron earnings, the Weil creditor talks, and the DoorDash and Nvidia antitrust reviews
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Gibson Dunn is set to hire a 37-lawyer team, including eight partners, from Weil’s City of London funds practice as the firm winds down.
The firm also added tax partner Jens Hafemann in Frankfurt.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is set to hire a London private-equity partner, the latest in a run of hires from Weil ahead of its dissolution.
With Weil’s restructuring roster about to hit the market, firms are bracing for a scramble over liability-management and workout talent, one of the best-paid corners of Big Law.
What today's moves tell us: Weil’s unwinding is redistributing some of the market’s best restructuring and funds talent, and rivals are moving fast to claim both the lawyers and their clients.
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Operations and Strategy
Weil’s collapse is becoming a live case study in how fragile law firms are even when profitable and generating business.
Weil Gotshal & Manges will try to wind down without filing for bankruptcy, a route that depends on reaching a payment plan with its creditors; if it cannot convince them it can repay its debts, creditors could force it into bankruptcy and leave former partners on the hook. The firm has brought in AlixPartners and Davis Polk to steer the process, which leaders expect to resemble Stroock & Stroock & Lavan’s two-year wind-down, where most unsecured creditors eventually settled rather than sue.
On operations, White & Case is holding back the rollout of its newest AI legal agent because many of its 2,000-plus lawyers remain wary of handing work to agents, even as about 90% already use the underlying tools and clients press the firm to show how it is using them. The firm says it may deliberately sacrifice some efficiency so junior lawyers still learn to do the work by hand before automating it, a direct answer to the training and leverage questions AI is forcing on Big Law.
Practices
AI Finance and Private Credit
The strain in the debt behind private equity and the AI build-out is where demand is shifting, and it is moving from originating loans to managing the ones already made. Lenders, sponsors and general counsel are watching a wave of 2028-29 maturities and the growing reluctance of big lenders to fund the riskiest parts of the AI trade, which points to steady work in refinancing, liability management and creditor negotiation. Private credit’s next phase looks less about writing new loans than about reworking existing ones.
Selected Press:
A $300 billion wall of private-equity debt matures in 2028 and 2029, with software borrowers about a third of it and roughly a quarter rated CCC-plus or below; Bank of America expects below-investment-grade loan defaults to double to 4% next year.
Ares Management is steering away from financing AI chips, citing how fast they lose value, and favoring data centers and power infrastructure; it puts AI’s capital needs near $5 trillion.
The fund raised $6 billion at first close for its fourth flagship private-credit fund, plus $2 billion for an adjacent open-ended fund.
Microsoft drew $115 billion of orders for a $25 billion bond sale, its first in a decade, while HSBC looked to offload data-center credit risk to insurers.
M&A and Capital Markets
Dealmakers kept pushing out large transactions despite the sell-off in AI names, a sign boards are acting on strategic logic rather than waiting for calmer markets. General counsel and sponsors are weighing financing and antitrust risk across consolidation plays and take-privates, which points to a busy run of sell-side, financing and merger-review mandates.
Selected Press:
DoorDash agreed to buy Instacart for about $17 billion in cash and stock, with Latham & Watkins, Cravath and Cooley advising.
Thrive Holdings, an arm of Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital, agreed to buy home-security company ADT in a $7.6 billion all-cash deal, with Kirkland & Ellis and Cravath advising.
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s shareholders rejected its bids for Banco BPM and Banca Generali and a Mediobanca merger, a win for Intesa Sanpaolo’s hostile approach.
Czech billionaire Michal Strnad offered $33.5 billion for Delfin, the holding company behind EssilorLuxottica, and Gautam Adani weighed a roughly 3 billion-euro deal for Dutch energy-storage group VTTI.
Antitrust and Regulatory
Regulators are leaning into both deal review and data practices, keeping execution risk front of mind for dealmakers and adding compliance work for corporate clients. Scrutiny of large technology tie-ups and a widening look at algorithmic pricing give general counsel fresh reason to plan for second requests and investigations.
Selected Press:
The Justice Department is investigating Nvidia’s $12.9 billion purchase of Hugging Face over antitrust concerns.
The FTC ordered Walmart, Delta, Uber, DoorDash and others to disclose how they use personal data to set customer prices and gig-worker pay, sharpening scrutiny of AI-driven pricing.
Corporate Governance and Activism
Activists and restless boards are reopening questions about breakups and control, which tends to generate defense, governance and separation work. Directors and their counsel are weighing how far to go in response to investor pressure.
Selected Press:
Some BP directors favor breaking up the $129 billion oil major after smaller divestitures failed to satisfy investors; no decision has been made, CEO Meg O’Neill is said to oppose it, and BP called the report “categorically false.”
Applebee’s owner Dine Brands adopted a poison pill to fend off a buyout approach from Cobblers Cove Capital and Arkhouse Management.
Where the Work Sits
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The clearest new demand sits in the credit tied to private equity and the AI build-out. If prior cycles are a guide, this kind of strain shows up first as a refinancing-and-maturity problem rather than a credit-quality one, which is why a $300 billion maturity wall and lenders pulling back from AI chips point to liability-management, workout, creditor-rights and structured-finance mandates well before they point to defaults.
M&A and antitrust work is building alongside it. Consolidation plays like DoorDash-Instacart and take-privates like Thrive’s ADT deal point to M&A, financing and merger-review mandates, while the DOJ’s look at Nvidia-Hugging Face and the FTC’s pricing inquiry add second-request and investigations work.
Boardroom contests are a third source. BP’s breakup debate and Dine Brands’ poison pill point to activism-defense, governance and separation planning for companies deciding how to answer investor pressure.
AI keeps generating advisory work beyond finance. Firms wrestling with how fast to deploy legal AI, and companies disclosing AI risk the way Anthropic has, point to governance, procurement and disclosure mandates that cut across practice groups.
Global Markets
Central banks are mostly holding while signaling they are not finished, as hot US growth meets a wobbling AI trade.
Executives and treasurers are weighing whether a run of holds is a true pause or a way station before more hikes, and dealmakers are timing issuance accordingly. Central banks are converging on a wait-and-see stance even as the range of outcomes by region and balance-sheet quality keeps widening, which is when careful financing advice earns its keep. Clients are reading hot Q3 growth and sticky inflation as a reason to lock in funding while they can.
Selected Press:
US Q3 GDP grew at a 3.4% annualized rate while core PCE ran at 3.1%, and markets priced about a 78% chance of a December Fed hike after the Fed held at 3.75-4.00%.
The ECB held at 2.5%, with de Cos and Knot the frontrunners to succeed Christine Lagarde, who leaves in February, and officials signaled a possible December hike.
The Bank of Japan held but left the door open to a December move, and the Bank of Canada raised rates to 2.50%, its first hike since 2023.
Workers’ share of US output fell to a record-low 52.8% as automation and AI investment shifted gains toward capital.
Stories to Watch
ExxonMobil and Chevron earnings (today) - a read on energy cash flows as oil swings on the US-Iran war.
Weil creditor negotiations - the payment plan that decides whether the firm avoids bankruptcy and how fast clients and partners move.
DoorDash-Instacart and Nvidia-Hugging Face antitrust reviews - early tests of how hard regulators lean on tech consolidation.
The FTC’s algorithmic-pricing inquiry - responses from Walmart, Delta, Uber and DoorDash will shape data-and-pricing compliance.
ECB succession - de Cos and Knot are the names to watch before Lagarde’s February exit, with a December hike in play.
US midterms (next week) - the political backdrop for enforcement and regulatory priorities into 2027.
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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