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Weil Gotshal brought in Davis Polk’s restructuring team as it weighs its future, even as two more partners left for Skadden and global private equity co-head Doug Warner departed for Paul Weiss. The lateral market stayed busy, with Kirkland, Cleary, Cole Schotz and Womble all adding partners.
On the client side, the debt behind the AI build-out started to strain, with Moody’s flagging refinancing risk and bankers struggling to place data-center loans. Antitrust enforcers moved against Cintas and Dollar General, and Meta and Snap went to trial over youth social-media harms.
The Fed decides rates today with oil near $114 and AI costs broadening inflation.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Weil retains Davis Polk’s restructuring team as Doug Warner exits to Paul Weiss and Skadden lands two more partners
-Laterals continue: Kirkland, Cleary, Cole Schotz and Womble add partners in funds, PE, litigation and projects
-AI debt market strains — double-digit yields on data-center loans and Moody’s warning on refinancing and circular financing
-Private equity writes “AI disruption” into buyout-loan force majeure clauses; insurers keep leaning into private credit
-FTC moves to block Cintas–UniFirst and sues Dollar General; California widens its antitrust law
-Meta and Snap head to trial in Los Angeles over youth social-media addiction claims
-Fed decides today as oil holds near $114 and AI-driven costs broaden inflation
-Watch: FOMC, the UK Budget, Big Tech earnings, and the Meta–Snap trial
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Kirkland & Ellis hired investment funds and secondaries partner Christian Vareika in Boston from Ropes & Gray.
Cleary Gottlieb added M&A and private equity partner Mark Pflug in New York from Simpson Thacher.
Cole Schotz brought on commercial litigator Utibe Ikpe in Miami.
Womble Bond Dickinson hired public law and projects partner Brendan Ryan in London.
Skadden recruited Andrew Dean into its white-collar and investigations group in New York and Christopher Mulligan into its investment management group in Washington, both from Weil, where they had arrived from the SEC.
Paul Weiss landed Weil’s global private equity co-head Doug Warner in New York, a partner at Weil since 1986 and at least the 14th leader to leave the firm this year.
What today’s moves tell us: firms kept paying up for funds, private equity, litigation and regulatory talent, while Weil’s roster kept thinning at the top.
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
A marquee New York partnership is now preparing for outcomes it spent decades avoiding.
Weil Gotshal has retained Davis Polk’s restructuring partner Brian Resnick, who leads its liability management and special opportunities practice, and chair Neil Barr to help chart its path as partner departures mount. Barr was first engaged when Weil was exploring a merger, including the since-abandoned talks with Willkie Farr. A failed succession rarely glides into a clean recovery, and the three options under consideration: a rescue merger, a slimmer standalone firm, or a wind-down, each generate partnership-governance, conflicts and client-transition work.
One practice is holding up: Weil’s restructuring group remains intact and busy, currently advising L’Oréal and a group of golfers in the LIV Golf bankruptcy.
Latham & Watkins will build an AI tool for fund formation work with Harvey, deepening a relationship that already runs through its litigation data, and former antitrust enforcers Jonathan Kanter and Doha Mekki raised $6.4 million to launch FluxCap, a litigation-focused AI start-up, as funding for legal technology reached $3.2 billion last year.
Practices
Private Equity, Private Credit and AI Finance
Lenders and sponsors are still pushing capital into the AI build-out, but the terms are where demand is shifting. The biggest near-term risk in private credit now looks less like a credit-quality problem than a funding one — refinancing walls, redemption pressure and circular financing among the same handful of AI names — which is why fund managers, sponsors and insurers are leaning on counsel for structuring, documentation and liability-management work as much as for new deals.
Selected Press:
Wall Street’s AI debt machine is straining, with at least 18 data-center financings now carrying double-digit yields as investors turn selective and banks and insurers near their exposure limits.
Moody’s warned that AI borrowing is pushing private credit into data centers, power and chips, projecting close to $1 trillion of capital spending by the largest US hyperscalers and CoreWeave in 2027, with loans maturing in 2027–2029 and 17% of tracked borrowers using payment-in-kind interest.
Insurers are still leaning into private markets, with about three-quarters of those BlackRock surveyed planning to add private-market exposure and 41% prioritizing private debt, even as US regulators tighten capital rules on CLOs and scrutinize private-credit ratings.
Private equity is writing “AI disruption” into buyout loans, with H.I.G. Capital securing force majeure-style clauses in the €470 million financing for Germany’s Terras Group; Paul Weiss advised H.I.G., while lenders stripped similar language from Bain Capital’s €4.7 billion-equivalent deal for Everllence.
Ares agreed to buy MidCap Financial from Apollo for about $2.6 billion and fold it into Ares Capital, consolidating direct-lending platforms.
Antitrust and Consumer Protection
Enforcers are active on both merger and conduct fronts, cutting against the view that deal review has eased. Dealmakers and general counsel are reading the FTC’s moves as a reminder to build antitrust and consumer-protection risk into deal theses and pricing practices early, while state legislators widen the ground enforcers can cover.
Selected Press:
The FTC moved to block Cintas’s $5.5 billion acquisition of UniFirst, keeping large strategic combinations under close review.
The FTC and 20 states sued Dollar General, alleging stores charged customers more than advertised: a consumer-protection theory with industry-wide reach.
California’s COMPETE Act widens the state’s antitrust law, letting state enforcers pursue monopolization and monopsony claims and adding uncertainty through broad, undefined standards.
Litigation and Product Liability
Platform liability is back in front of a jury. For general counsel across consumer technology, the question is no longer whether these cases reach trial but how far Section 230 still shields product-design choices — an answer that will reset settlement math across thousands of pending claims.
Selected Press:
Meta and Snap went to trial in Los Angeles over claims that Instagram and Snapchat features drove compulsive use in two teenagers, the latest bellwether drawn from more than 3,000 consolidated cases after both defendants settled with TikTok and YouTube.
Section 230 is the central fight, after Judge Carolyn Kuhl ruled it does not bar design claims and a March jury found Meta and YouTube negligent, awarding $6 million; Mark Zuckerberg, Adam Mosseri and Evan Spiegel are expected to testify.
Where the Work Sits
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The strain in AI finance is the clearest new source of mandates. As data-center loans price at double-digit yields and maturity walls approach, the work is moving toward liability management, workouts, intercreditor negotiation and the disclosure and insurance-regulatory advice that sits around private credit.
Deal structuring is following the same risk. Force majeure clauses built around AI disruption, consolidation among direct lenders such as Ares and MidCap, and tighter capital rules on CLOs point to bespoke financing, fund-finance and creditor-rights mandates for firms that can move between credit, funds and restructuring.
Antitrust and consumer-protection work is widening. The FTC’s challenge to Cintas–UniFirst, its Dollar General suit and California’s broader antitrust statute point to merger-review, remedies, state-attorney-general and defense mandates across retail, industrials and services.
Platform litigation is the standing exposure. The Meta and Snap trial, and the fight over how far Section 230 reaches product design, keep product-liability, appellate and crisis-advisory teams busy well beyond the named defendants.
Global Markets
Central banks are splitting as a fresh energy shock feeds into inflation.
Executives and dealmakers are weighing whether today’s Fed decision opens a financing window or confirms a longer hold. With oil near $114 on the eight-month Iran war and an Israeli election, boards are treating energy and rates as live deal variables again, and treasurers are timing issuance around a calendar where Washington holds while Canada and others lean toward hikes. The cost of money has reset adding risk to waiting.
Selected Press:
The Fed is expected to hold at 3.75–4.00% today, with attention on Chair Kevin Warsh’s guidance on whether a December hike is still live.
Oil held near $114 a barrel as traders watched Israel’s election and the risk of renewed strikes on Iran.
The Bank of Canada is expected to raise rates as oil near $115 feeds inflation, while New Zealand, Thailand and Chile held and Australia looks set for a fifth 2026 hike.
Goldman Sachs estimates the AI investment wave is adding to inflation, with a projected peak near 60 basis points on US core PCE and 25 basis points elsewhere before fading through 2027.
US-friendly nations cut Treasury purchases 60% in the first eight months of 2026, led by Asia, as UK Chancellor John Healey prepares a budget today.
Stories to Watch
FOMC decision (today) — a hold is expected at 3.75–4.00%; the focus is Chair Warsh’s guidance on December.
UK Budget (today) — Chancellor John Healey’s first budget, with gilt markets watching for fiscal credibility.
Big Tech earnings — Alphabet and Microsoft today and Amazon Thursday, the clearest read yet on AI capital spending.
Core PCE, Q3 GDP and personal income and spending (Thursday) — the first hard growth and inflation reads into the Fed’s decision.
Meta–Snap trial — expected to run several weeks, with Zuckerberg, Mosseri and Spiegel set to testify and a possible punitive-damages phase.
US midterms (November 3) — early voting is under way, with ballot-access and election-administration fights already in court.
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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