Ben Thomson

Vedder Makes Its New York Move With 49,000-Square-Foot Manhattan Office Deal

BigLaw /
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Chicago-based law firm Vedder is making a significant investment in its New York presence, taking an entire floor in one of Manhattan’s prominent Sixth Avenue office towers. Global law firm Vedder has signed a long-term lease for 49,000 square feet at 1221 Avenue of the Americas, securing the entire 34th floor of the Rockefeller Group-owned

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Weil Plugs a London Gap with Freshfields PE Partner Rebecca Ward

BigLaw, Featured, UK Law /
Rebecca ward lawfuel

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired Freshfields private equity partner Rebecca Ward in London, a welcome arrival at a firm that has lately been better known for partners leaving than joining. Ward joined Freshfields in 2022 after 17 years at sponsor specialist Dickson Minto, nine of them as partner. Her client list includes CVC, TPG

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Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor Takes the Police to Court, and the King Won’t Pick Up the Tab

Featured, Opinion, UK Law /
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The Duke of York may be out, but the litigation claimant is in. Stripped of his royal titles and his dukedom last October, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has gone from pariah to a significant public-law litigant having launched judicial review proceedings against Thames Valley Police and the Central Criminal Court following his birthday arrest. The first round

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Harvey Comes Calling As BigLaw Associates Trade the Billable Hour for “Legal Engineer”

BigLaw, Featured, Legal AI, Legal Careers /
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Power Points -Firm Prospects tracked nearly 16,000 moves in and out of the Am Law 200 in the first half of 2026. The headline number is small. What it tells you is not. For as long as anyone can remember, the BigLaw associate’s exit menu has been short and predictable, namely move to another firm,

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The Fearsome Foursome Is Back. It’s the Same Four. Again.

BigLaw, Power Law Firms - Global, US Law /
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Quinn Emanuel tops BTI’s most feared litigation list for the fifth straight year. The top sixteen firms haven’t budged. The only real movement is further down, where some “Awesome” firms are quietly being reclassified as merely “Intimidating.” A particular kind of silence falls over a general counsel’s office when the other side’s notice of appearance

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The Consigliere in the Red Mercedes – Neel Sachdev, Big Law’s Leading Man

BigLaw, Featured, Lawyer Salaries, Rankings, UK Law /
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Neel Sachdev is the best-paid finance lawyer in London, the most-discussed lateral hire of the decade, and possibly the only Big Law partner who has consulted an astrologer before hiring associates. He’s also been continuing to attract a lot of publicity lately.

Most partners at elite law firms prefer to be invisible outside a small circle of clients and headhunters. Neel Sachdev has taken a different approach. The Paul Weiss London co-head is the subject of a new Financial Times profile, and it may be the most entertaining piece of legal journalism this year.

The FT’s legal correspondent, Suzi Ring, met the 51-year-old lawyer in Portugal, where he has invested in a luxury property development on the site of a former orange grove in the Algarve. He did not arrive quietly, but rather in a red open-top 1977 Mercedes 450 SL, wearing a matching outfit, sunglasses and his trademark beaded bracelets.

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The Original Boomerang Boomerangs Out: Mike Aiello Quits Weil for Cravath

BigLaw, Rankings, US Law /
Aiello Michael

Power Points: Weil, Gotshal & Manges has spent three weeks losing partners and then on Friday it lost the one who mattered most. Michael Aiello, chairman of Weil’s 600-lawyer corporate department and the man colleagues routinely describe as the firm’s most powerful partner, has told Weil he is resigning. He is expected to surface at

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A Hundred Days Of Silence: BigLaw Made Record Money And Still Has Not Paid The $235K Scale

BigLaw, Lawyer Salaries, Rankings /
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Milbank announced its new associate salary scale on Tuesday 2 June and today is Thursday 10 September. That is one hundred days, to the day, and the largest and most profitable law firms in the United States have still not said what they intend to pay their associates. This is not how the associate pay

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Hacked On Thursday, Disqualified On Friday: BigLaw’s Information Problem Gets A Face

BigLaw, Featured, Law Firm Marketing /
Lawfirmsecurity

There is no causal link between the two events. That is precisely why they matter. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan had the sort of week that gets discussed at partner retreats for years, through gritted teeth and very painful memories. On Thursday 3 September, Reuters reported that Quinn Emanuel and McDermott Will & Schulte had

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The 3,000 Hour Associate: Inside The Troutman Pepper Locke Partnership Lawsuit

BigLaw, US Law /
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A federal complaint filed in New Jersey has managed something most BigLaw disputes never do. It has put the partnership track’s least visible machinery, the allocation of supervisory credit, on a public court proceeding. Power Points: A Troutman Pepper Locke associate has sued the firm and two of its partners, alleging disability discrimination, interference with

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