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Weil Gotshal & Manges is rebuilding its private equity bench, bringing back Cravath PE head Peter Feist as US co-head; Jenner & Block landed former New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum; and Proskauer, Mayer Brown, Buchalter and Akin all added partners. New data shows nearly one in four Am Law 200 lateral moves now travels in groups of three or more.
On the client side, private-credit redemptions eased at Apollo, Ares and BlackRock even as funds meet under half of withdrawal requests, hyperscalers are on track to issue over $1tn of AI debt against a $4.3tn corporate maturity wall, and courts handed Meta, TikTok and Apple fresh setbacks. The 10-year yield holds above 5%, the US and China cut tariffs on about $30bn of goods each, and Iran refused to soften its terms on the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Weil brings back Cravath PE head Feist; Jenner & Block adds ex-NJ Solicitor General Feigenbaum; Proskauer, Mayer Brown, Buchalter and Akin add partners
-Roughly one in four Am Law 200 laterals now moves in groups of three or more
-Cooley launches an in-house AI subsidiary; Uplift Investors strikes its sixth law-firm MSO deal; Seyfarth Shaw sued over a 56,000-person data breach
-Private-credit withdrawals slow at Apollo, Ares and BlackRock, but funds still meet under half of redemption requests
-Hyperscalers set to issue $1tn+ of AI debt as a $4.3tn US corporate maturity wall builds
-Apax buys out Warburg Pincus in Odido; Northern Star rejects a $27bn Gold Fields bid; UBS weighs a European merger
-Meta, TikTok and Anthropic face fresh court setbacks; Apple hit with a record $5.7bn patent verdict
-10-year holds above 5%; US and China cut tariffs on ~$30bn of goods; Iran holds firm on Hormuz
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
Weil Gotshal & Manges is bringing back Peter Feist from Cravath, Swaine & Moore as US co-head of private equity, a “boomerang” return that anchors its PE rebuild.
Jenner & Block hired former New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum as an appellate partner with US Supreme Court experience.
Proskauer added tax partner Edouard de Rancher in Paris.
Mayer Brown hired insurance deals partner John Grothaus from Sidley for its corporate, securities and global insurance practices in Chicago.
Buchalter recruited restructuring partner Bill Smelko in San Diego.
Akin brought back corporate partner Neil DuChez in New York from Goldman Sachs for a tech-focused role.
A&O Shearman added former US District Judge Alan Albright, who once handled about a quarter of US patent cases, as a patent litigation partner.
What today's moves tell us: The pattern is broader than any one hire: about 23.6% of Am Law 200 firm-to-firm lateral moves from January through June involved groups of at least three lawyers, per Firm Prospects, even as second-quarter activity slowed. Firms are prioritizing private equity, tax and appellate benches, buying back rainmakers and lifting teams as demand for high-end talent stays concentrated at the top of the market.
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 spending heavily on AI while outside capital and cyber exposure test how they grow and protect themselves.
Cooley launched Cooley AI, a firm-owned subsidiary hiring more than a dozen engineers and data scientists to build internal tools and new services. It captures a wider talent race in which firms pay AI specialists salaries that rival junior lawyers, even as some lawyers leave for OpenAI, Anthropic and Harvey.
Uplift Investors struck its sixth deal to back a firm’s non-legal operations through a management services organization, this time with personal-injury firm Rainwater, Holt & Sexton, extending the MSO route for outside capital into law.
Seyfarth Shaw was hit with a proposed class action over an August data breach affecting more than 56,000 people, the latest firm pulled into the breach-litigation wave. Separately, Live Nation general counsel Michael Rowles will step down in November after the Ticketmaster litigation.
Practices
Private Equity and M&A
Sponsors and strategics are pressing ahead across telecoms, banking, mining and luxury, and contested cross-border deals are keeping M&A, antitrust and governance lawyers busy. This remains a market that rewards prepared buyers: acquirers that did the analytical work through the slowdown are moving decisively as tracked assets finally shake loose, which points to sell-side, financing and merger-control mandates for the dealmaking elite.
Selected Press:
Apax is nearing a deal to buy Warburg Pincus out of Dutch telecoms group Odido, valued near €6.5bn, after the pair scrapped an IPO and a cyberattack exposed customer data.
Northern Star Resources rejected Gold Fields' ~$27bn share-and-cash bid as undervalued, with Elliott Management urging the board to engage; a deal would create the world’s second-largest gold miner.
UBS is weighing a merger with Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank or StanChart to exit Switzerland over capital rules; BASF made a merger proposal to Evonik, and Nubank and Monzo held early talks.
Private Credit and Capital Markets
Redemption pressure is easing but not over, and the AI buildout is reshaping debt markets just as a maturity wall approaches. Managers, sponsors and their lenders keep leaning on counsel to hold gates, manage exits and time issuance, sending high-end matters to funds, structured-credit, capital-markets and workout teams as executives weigh financing against 5% yields.
Selected Press:
Private-credit redemptions slowed in Q3 at Apollo, Ares and BlackRock, with Blackstone stable, though funds are meeting under half of requests and managers face subdued fee growth.
Hyperscalers are transforming debt: Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle drew about $500bn this year and may issue more than $1tn, crowding other borrowers and lifting long-term rates.
About $4.3tn of US corporate bonds mature between 2027 and 2031, with annual maturities topping $1tn by 2030, forcing pandemic-era fixed-rate borrowers to refinance far higher.
Data-center IPO hopefuls face a tougher market as scrutiny and higher yields raise the cost of the buildout, and Anthropic is seeking 50.1% founder voting control ahead of its ~$100bn IPO.
Litigation and Regulatory
Courts handed platforms and AI companies a run of setbacks, and enforcement is widening, feeding privacy, product-liability, IP and investigations mandates for general counsel. Verdicts of this size push boards to treat litigation strategy as part of the deal and product playbook, not an afterthought.
Selected Press:
A Santa Fe, New Mexico jury found Meta misled residents over the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting, and TikTok reached its first state settlement over teen-safety claims, agreeing to user limits.
An Apple jury verdict hit a record $5.7bn in a haptic-technology patent case, and a California jury ordered Eli Lilly to pay Nektar Therapeutics $90m over a broken autoimmune-drug agreement.
The DC Circuit declined to block the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic as a national-security risk, and New York sued prediction-market platform Polymarket over alleged illegal gambling.
Technology and AI Governance
Corporate buyers are shifting routine work to cheaper open-weight models and keeping sensitive data on their own infrastructure, a procurement, data-rights and governance question for general counsel as much as an IT decision.
Selected Press:
Corporate America embraces cheaper "open" AI models: AT&T runs about 40% of AI workloads on open models and targets 70%, with Tinder and Digital Realty citing lower costs and data control.
China weighs letting ByteDance and Alibaba buy new Nvidia chips, a possible shift in the export-control standoff.
Where the Work Sits
In past rate cycles, a fast climb in refinancing costs pulls issuance and liability management forward, and today’s mix, a $4.3tn maturity wall, the 10-year above 5%, and more than $1tn of looming hyperscaler issuance, points the same way. The work flows to acquisition-finance, high-yield and capital-markets teams now, and to restructuring desks if leases and loans sour.
Private-credit stress is shifting from redemptions to selective exits. Slower withdrawals at Apollo, Ares and BlackRock sit alongside funds meeting under half of requests, keeping funds, structured-credit, secondaries and workout counsel in demand as managers hold gates and price risk.
Odido, the UBS options, BASF and Evonik, and the contested Northern Star bid drive cross-border M&A, antitrust and corporate-governance work, while Elliott’s pressure on Northern Star adds activist-defense and board-advisory mandates.
The Meta and TikTok outcomes, the record Apple verdict and the Anthropic blacklisting feed privacy, product-liability, IP and national-security mandates, with AI governance now a standing workstream.
Global Markets
Rates and geopolitics are driving the tape, and treasurers and boards are repricing their plans. Executives are weighing whether to pull financing forward as the 10-year holds above 5% and a hawkish Fed rethink takes hold, while dealmakers watch the US-China truce and the US-Iran standoff for cues on trade, sanctions and energy. Decision-makers are also positioning around this week’s US inflation and jobs data for the next rate signal.
Selected Press:
The 10-year Treasury held above 5% and the 30-year topped 5.5% after Fed officials signaled they may meet energy-driven inflation with higher rates rather than look through it.
The US and China agreed to cut tariffs on about $30bn of goods each and steady ties before a planned leaders’ summit.
Iran refused to soften its Hormuz demands after Trump rejected another proposal to reopen the strait.
The race to succeed ECB President Lagarde builds as she testifies to the European Parliament, and Australia’s central bank is set to resume raising rates.
Stories to Watch
Reserve Bank of Australia decision (this week) — a resumption of rate hikes is expected as inflation stays sticky.
US August PCE inflation, income and spending, plus benchmark GDP revisions (Wednesday) — the clearest near-term read on a hawkish Fed.
September US jobs report (Friday) — labor-market strength feeds Fed expectations and M&A confidence.
White House media-ban injunction deadline (today) — CNN, Politico and MSNow press a First Amendment and due-process fight over access.
ECB succession and Brazil’s election — signals on the European rate path and Latin American policy risk.
DOJ folds its Tax Division into the Criminal Division and names tax fraud a priority — watch for more criminal tax enforcement and a focus on state tax-crime laws.
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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