Ben Thomson

Texas Trial Powerhouse McKool Smith Joins the Milbank Pay Scale (With a Delayed Start)

Best Firms, Big Law Salary Scale, Law Firm Rankings, Law Firm Salary Scale, Lawyer Salaries / August 22, 2026

McKool Smith has confirmed it will match the current Milbank associate salary scale, with the new pay rates taking effect on 1 January 2027. The Texas-based complex trial firm, known for competitive associate compensation which have reported previously, that has included Thanksgiving bonuses, strong year-end payouts, and market-matching raises, is lifting base salaries by $10,000

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Kirkland’s $500 Million AI Bet Isn’t About Speed. It’s About Killing the Billable Hour

Briefings, Featured, Headlining, Law Firm Technology, Law Firms, Legal AI / August 21, 2026

Kirkland & Ellis, the first law firm in history to break $10 billion in revenue, is putting half a billion dollars of its own money into a proprietary AI platform. That’s a big bold move (what else would you expect from Kirklands?) which is not to keep up with Harvey or Legora, or to shave a few hours off due diligence. It’s something far more valuable.

The plan is to bottle the firm’s “collective intelligence” and put it in every lawyer’s hands and, in the process, lean hard into the long-predicted death of the billable hour.
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Clifford Chance Goes to War Over $5.8 Million Partner Clawback: Behind the High-Stakes Geneva Battle

BigLaw, Lawyer Salaries, Rankings, UK Law / August 21, 2026

Key Points: Clifford Chance has asked the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to dismiss a declaratory-judgment action brought by former partners Clifford Cone and Michael Sabin and compel arbitration in Geneva, Switzerland, over the firm’s attempted recovery of almost $5.76 million in prior compensation. The firm described the lawsuit as

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Private Equity Eyes $700m WSHB Deal in Major Test for Big Law’s Ownership Rules

Featured, Featured, Headlining, Law Firms, Power Briefs / August 20, 2026

The announcement that Charlesbank Capital Partners is reportedly in advanced discussions over a transaction involving national law firm Wood Smith Henning & Berman (WSHB), valued at about $700 million, according to the Financial Times., shows that private equity interest is moving beyond the contingency fee and consumer market. Neither Charlesbank nor WSHB has publicly announced

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What Will Clients Still Pay Lawyers For When AI Can Do The Work?

Featured, Frequently Asked Questions, Headlining, Legal AI, Legal Careers, Power Briefs, US Law / August 16, 2026

The robot lawyers are coming. AI will replace lawyers . . yada yada, we hear it all. But is that the wrong question lawyers should be asking. The real question is what will clients still pay lawyers to do when AI can research, review, summarise, draft and analyse increasing amounts of legal work in minutes?

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BigLaw’s Private Equity Moment -The Next Deal Won’t Be Paul Weiss

Headlining, Law Firm Management, Law Firm Marketing, Law Firms, UK Law, US Law / August 9, 2026

Private Equity And Big Law Moves Paul Weiss, Quinn Emanuel and Proskauer have reportedly held preliminary conversations about outside capital, providing a key signal that private equity has found the back-office door into American law. LawFuel has been tracking that door since private equity first began eyeing Big Law and top firms started opening it.

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Wachtell’s Waterloo And The Chaos Marty Lipton Spent 50 Years Preventing

BigLaw, Briefings, Featured, LawPreneur, LawStars, US Law / August 7, 2026

Wachtell’s Summer of Love – And The Day Marty’s Firm Got Old What would brilliant lawyer Marty Lipton make of it? Restructuring and finance partners walking out in unison, litigation partners follow and a partner is filmed cosying up in Bryant Park when he should probably be billing. The once‑unthinkable idea of Wachtell Lipton coming

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Brown Rudnick’s 34‑Lawyer IP Raid Shows Big Law’s Lateral Arms Race Is Far From Over

BigLaw, Law Firm Management, Law Firm Marketing, US Law / August 6, 2026

What Brown Rudnick’s Major Hire Signals For Big Law’s Lateral Wars Brown Rudnick has just fired another shot in Big Law’s lateral wars, landing the largest group hire in the firm’s history and using it to plant a fresh flag in Silicon Valley. The Boston‑headquartered firm has recruited a 34‑lawyer intellectual property litigation and patent

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Second Office Romance Report Deepens Wachtell’s Extraordinary Week

BigLaw, Headlining, Law Firms, Lawyers, US Law / August 1, 2026

And The Lawyer Who Stands To Lose Millions In The Transfer Deal The Central Park “canoodling couple” story we covered this week may have dominated social media, but the story surrounding Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz keeps growing. Fresh claims published by the New York Post allege that William “Bill” Savitt, the ‘law star’ trial

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Macfarlanes Hits £3.1m PEP – Proof That Staying Small Still Beats the Magic Circle

Law Firms, Press Releases, UK Law / July 30, 2026

Macfarlanes has done it. Average pay for full-equity partners at the elite City firm has risen 8% to £3.1 million, smashing through the £3 million mark and leaving its larger Magic Circle rivals trailing by roughly a million pounds each. Turnover climbed more than 10% to £371.4 million, generating operating profit of £206.5 million. The

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