Stories making recent headlines on LawFuel . .
- 2026 BigLaw Salary Scale: When Is the Next Raise Dropping? r/biglaw Weighs In
It’s April 2026, and the usual spring fever has hit r/biglaw, except this year the chatter isn’t about bonus season (that already came and went). It’s all about the next salary scale. Log in to see the 2026 scale . . . - Macfarlanes Hits £3.1m PEP – Proof That Staying Small Can Beat The Magic Circle At Its Own Game
he 150-year-old City firm just posted profitability numbers that will make some London big law partners wince, but the strategy is deceptively simple. While the Magic Circle firms continue their global expansion arms race, adding offices in places most partners couldn’t find on a map, Macfarlanes has been quietly doing something almost heretical in modern BigLaw: staying focused, staying small, and getting spectacularly rich in the process. Log in to read more . . - Record £534m PE Cash Floods UK Law Firms With AI As the Rocket Fuel
If you’re a lawyer watching your firm’s P&L or thinking about the next tech upgrade, here’s the headline you can’t ignore: private equity poured a record £534 million into UK law firms in 2024, which is a chunky 42% jump from £377m the year before. Over the past five years that’s more than £1.2 billion of fresh capital heading into the sector. - BigLaw’s $50K Public Interest Stipend War: What It Really Means for Law Students
- Tiger Woods Arrested for DUI Again — What Florida Law Really Means for Him Now, and the Elite Lawyers Who Fight These Cases
- London Law Boss ‘Spitting Feathers’ Over Partners’ Sexual Harassment Pattern
The boss of one of the London’s elite insurance law firms has taken the extraordinary step of personally overseeing misconduct complaints after rising allegations of bullying and sexual harassment among senior partners, shining a fresh, unflattering light on law firms’ ongoing struggle to clean up their cultures. Read more . . - The $11 Million Club – BigLaw’s Partner Profit Machine Just Broke Another Record — And The 2026 Rankings Haven’t Even Dropped Yet
- Ropes & Gray Raids Latham & Watkins for Eight-Lawyer Paris PE/M&A Team
In a bold lateral strike that underscores the fierce talent battle in Paris Big Law, Ropes & Gray has snapped up a high-powered eight-lawyer private equity and M&A group from rival Latham & Watkins. The move, confirmed by multiple sources including The Lawyer andLaw.com International, brings three partners — Denis Criton, (pictured) Gaëtan Gianasso, and Michael Colle - Jay Lefkowitz, Kirkland Partner Who Represented Epstein, to Retire from Firm This Spring
- White & Case Hits $3.6bn — And It’s Just Getting Warmed Up
- $11 Million a Partner -The Big Law Pay Story That Makes Every Other Firm’s Numbers Look Modest
Kirkland & Ellis just changed the frame for the entire industry If you write about lawyers for long enough, you make a quiet peace with the gap between your pay packet and theirs. This week, however, Kirkland & Ellis has made that gap feel almost cosmic. Equity partners at the world’s highest-grossing law firm averaged $11.1 million each for 2025 – a 20% increase on 2024. The major money figure places Kirkland’s partners in the earnings bracket of a top Premier League footballer, at roughly £22,500 a day. The firm simultaneously became the first law firm in history to break $10 billion in revenue, posting $10.56 billion for the year. - The Private Equity Lawyer Who Will Run Weil Gotshal
When Weil, Gotshal & Manges announced last week that Ramona Y. Nee will succeed Barry Wolf as Executive Partner from January 2027, the news landed with the quiet inevitability of a deal that everyone saw coming. Wolf, who has steered the firm for 16 years, called her “uniquely suited.” He was not exaggerating. For nearly a quarter-century Nee has been the quiet engine of Weil’s U.S. private equity practice and the beating heart of its Boston office. Now the firm is handing her the keys.