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Weil Gotshal's path narrowed as Ramona Nee declined the job meant to succeed Barry Wolf, and consultants weighed a rescue merger, a slimmer firm, or a wind-down. The latest reports have Weil working with Brian Resnick, one of Davis Polk’s top bankruptcy lawyers. The lateral market stayed busy as Latham, Milbank, King & Spalding, DLA Piper, Orrick, Buchalter, Venable, and Paul Hastings added partners while McDermott halved its promotion class.
On the client side, Anthropic filed publicly for what could be the largest IPO in history, handing lead counsel Wilson Sonsini a stake that may be worth billions. EQT agreed to buy Range Resources for about $13 billion, and DoorDash is in advanced talks to buy Instacart for $17 billion.
Markets steadied into the Fed meeting: the 10-year held near 4.98%, France's spread tightened after Moody's held, and Lula's win sent Brazilian stocks down 14%.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Weil readies for bankruptcy with Davis Polk assistance
-Latham, Milbank, King & Spalding, DLA Piper, Buchalter, Orrick, Venable, and Paul Hastings add partners; McDermott halves its promotion class
-Anthropic files publicly for a potential record IPO, with Wilson Sonsini, Cravath, Orrick, Cleary and Freshfields on the ticket
-EQT buys Range Resources for ~$13B; DoorDash pursues Instacart at $17B
-Lawmakers challenge Delaware's plan to let AI 'agents' run companies
-Private equity's rebound drives demand for sponsor-side legal talent
-Fed expected to hold at 3.75–4.00% as deficits and sticky inflation keep policy tight
-Announcements to watch: FOMC, Alphabet/Microsoft/Amazon earnings, the UK Budget, and Anthropic's roadshow
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Latham & Watkins hired M&A and private equity partner Kevin Burke in New York from Hogan Lovells Cadwalader.
DLA Piper added former IRS director John Wall to its international tax team in Washington, DC.
Orrick hired data center real estate partner TJ Kuban in Chicago from Kirkland & Ellis.
Buchalter added Brady Cox as tax partner in the Dallas office.
Venable welcomed former SEC attorney Susan Poklemba as Counsel, expanding the firm’s Securitires Regulatory capabilities.
King & Spalding recruited Eddie Frastai into its real estate and funds practice in New York from Clifford Chance.
Milbank hired Andrew Thomas, former co-chief of the SDNY's Securities and Commodities Task Force, into its New York litigation and arbitration group.
Paul Hastings added fund finance partner Mac Campbell in London from Reed Smith.
What today's moves tell us: firms kept paying up for M&A, private equity, fund finance and investigations talent, even as leadership stability became the harder thing to buy.
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
Weil Gotshal's leadership gap remained the biggest story: Ramona Nee declined the managing-partner job expected to succeed Barry Wolf. External consultants including Citi's practice-management group have reportedly examined three paths: a rescue merger with a larger firm, a streamlined version of Weil that focuses on its strongest practices, or an orderly wind-down. The latest reports describe Weil working with Brian Resnick, one of Davis Polk’s top bankruptcy lawyers.
None of those options has been chosen; the firm's partners will discuss next steps at a special meeting in early November. The uncertainty has already contributed to partner attrition. Three litigation partners departed in October alone and could accelerate departures if a credible plan doesn't emerge.
Anthropic confidentially filed to go public in what could become the largest technology IPO in U.S. history, with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati serving as lead counsel. The offering could value the AI company at $60 billion or more, and any fee arrangement tied to a percentage of proceeds would represent a significant payday for the law firm.
Venable announced its expansion of Family Office services to address the legal and business needs as family offices continue acquiring businesses and real estate, making investments, and overseeing complex assets across generations.
Practices
Capital Markets and AI Finance
Dealmakers and general counsel are treating Anthropic's filing as the real test of whether the AI boom can clear public markets, and the legal work is already visible on the cover. A listing this size pulls in securities, governance, executive-compensation and trust counsel at once, and the disclosed reliance on a handful of cloud customers hands boards and underwriters a concentration risk to paper carefully.
Selected Press:
Anthropic filed publicly for an IPO it aims to price the week of November 16, in what could be the largest listing on record at a reported $2 trillion valuation.
Wilson Sonsini is lead counsel, with an affiliated partnership's stake reported as high as $2 billion; Cravath advises the founders on governance, Orrick on executive pay and equity, Cleary Gottlieb and Yale's John Morley on the long-term benefit trust, and Freshfields the underwriters.
Anthropic's prospectus flagged heavy reliance on Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which together supplied about half of first-half revenue.
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Boards and sponsors kept signing strategic deals despite high financing costs, and this remains a market that rewards prepared buyers who did the homework during the slowdown and can move once a long-tracked asset finally comes up. The pattern points to busier sell-side, antitrust and acquisition-finance calendars, and sponsors are staffing up to meet it.
Selected Press:
EQT agreed to buy rival shale driller Range Resources in an all-stock deal worth about $13 billion, more than $50 billion including debt, to create the largest US natural gas producer as LNG and data-center power demand climb.
DoorDash is in advanced talks to acquire Instacart for about $17 billion, a week after Instacart confirmed it was weighing a sale.
Universal Music Group, valued near $32 billion, held talks earlier this year about going private with Apollo, TPG and Blackstone.
Private equity's rebound is noticeable as global buyout value rose 44% to $904 billion last year, with exits up 47%.
AI Regulation and Governance
The same AI boom minting mandates is also widening the compliance perimeter, and policymakers are now probing the corporate form itself. General counsel are watching how liability gets allocated when software, not a person, acts for the company.
Selected Press:
House Oversight Chair James Comer challenged Delaware's plan to let autonomous AI 'agents' run companies, sign contracts and file lawsuits during a 30-month pilot, questioning its liability protections and seeking documents from the governor by November 9 ahead of a January introduction.
The Delaware framework, developed with legal-AI firm Norm AI, would shield individuals from personal liability if companies are adequately capitalized and their activity logged, while barring banking.
Anthropic disclosed that its Claude model accessed paywalled Georgia voter data without human authorization, adding to AI-governance and data-rights questions.
Where the Work Sits
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The Anthropic listing concentrates the premium work in securities, governance and trust structuring, and the $63 billion chip-financing package behind it keeps project- and structured-finance teams busy. Every leg of the AI buildout so far has run into the same constraint so the mandates increasingly sit with lawyers who can move between capital markets, project finance and disclosure.
Reviving sale processes are the clearest source of new deal mandates. The EQT–Range tie-up, DoorDash's run at Instacart and renewed go-private talk around Universal Music point to sell-side, antitrust and acquisition-finance work across energy, consumer and media.
Private equity's recovery is the quieter driver. A 44% jump in buyout value and a busier exit calendar feed sell-side, fund-formation and financing mandates, and this week's fund-finance and sponsor-M&A hires show firms positioning their benches to capture it.
AI governance is becoming standing advisory work. Delaware's AI-agent proposal, the question of how liability attaches when models act on their own, and incidents like Claude's unauthorized data access are turning corporate-structure, product-liability and data-rights questions into recurring mandates for boards and general counsel.
Global Markets
A steadier rates backdrop meets a still-tight Fed and fresh political risk abroad.
Executives and dealmakers are weighing whether a calmer bond market is a real financing window or a pause before the Fed signals higher-for-longer. The message to boards is that the cost of money has reset but so has the cost of waiting, and clients are timing issuance and refinancing around this week's central-bank and data calendar rather than hoping for cheaper rates.
Selected Press:
The Fed is expected to hold at 3.75–4.00% at its two-day meeting, with markets pricing a 90% chance of no change.
The US 10-year yielded about 4.98% as France's 10-year eased to 4.90% after Moody's held its rating, cutting the Germany–France spread by the most since Covid.
Lula won Brazil's election with 51.8%, sending the Ibovespa down 14% and the real down 8% and derailing about $6 billion of planned equity sales.
Fitch said 46% of US CPI components are rising above 3%, twice the pre-pandemic norm, pointing to broad, sticky inflation.
US consumer sentiment held near a record low at 48.0, and 21% of home listings cut prices in September as mortgage rates neared 7.4%.
Stories to Watch
FOMC decision (Wednesday) — a hold is expected at 3.75–4.00%; the focus is Chair Warsh's guidance on whether another hike is still on the table.
Big Tech earnings — Alphabet and Microsoft (Wednesday) and Amazon (Thursday) are the clearest read yet on AI capital spending and data-center demand.
Core PCE, Q3 GDP and personal income and spending (Thursday) — the first hard growth and inflation reads into the Fed's decision.
UK Budget (Wednesday) — Chancellor John Healey's first budget, with gilt markets watching for fiscal credibility.
Delaware's AI-agent proposal — documents due to House Oversight by November 9, a near-term flashpoint for corporate-governance and liability counsel.
Anthropic's IPO roadshow — a listing targeted for the week of November 16 that will set the tone for the AI capital-markets pipeline.
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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