The LawFuel Lawyer Celebs List
It should come as no surprise that John Grisham holds a law degree. His criminal-justice background likely adds to his novels’ believability. The best-selling crime author earned his law degree from graduated from Mississippi State University and received a J.D. degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practiced criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from January 1984 to September 1990.
He began practicing as a criminal defense and personal injury attorney. But a case inspired Grisham to write his first novel, A Time to Kill. Then, Grisham wrote The Firm, which sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, Skipping Christmas, and A Time to Kill.
In 2010, Grisham started writing a series of legal thrillers for children aged 9 to 12 years, which feature a 13 year old, Theodore Boone, who gives his classmates legal advice ranging from rescuing impounded dogs to helping their parents prevent their house from being repossessed. He said, “I’m hoping primarily to entertain and interest kids, but at the same time I’m quietly hoping that the books will inform them, in a subtle way, about law,” he says
- The OpenAI Defense: Inside the Wachtell Trial Team That Just Beat Elon Musk
While Elon Musk’s legal team tried to transform a federal courtroom in Oakland, California into an existential debate about the fate of human civilization and a “stolen charity,” Sam Altman’s defenders quietly built a procedural guillotine. A unanimous nine-member federal advisory jury took less than two hours to reject all of Musk’s claims against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and President Greg Brockman, which presumably was both surprising and disappointing for the multi-billionaire. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the verdict from the bench, dismissing the case in full. The same statute-of-limitations finding wiped out Musk’s aiding-and-abetting claim against Microsoft, an early backer of OpenAI’s for-profit arm. Log in to the the lawyer profiles . . . - The $8 Billion Fight That Shows Why Litigation Is Still the City’s Ultimate Blood Sport
A monster battle is unfolding in the sprawling claim against audit powerhouse PwC, born from the spectacular implosion of Chinese property behemoth China Evergrande, the most indebted property group in the world. Senior silks like Richard Handyside KC, the Fountain Court Chambers’ Head, are facing off against those from 3 Verulam Buildings (3VB) where Adrian Beltrami KC represents the liquidators as they battle over allegations of negligence and misrepresentation in the $8.4 billion battle. The numbers are eye-watering, even by City standards. Evergrande’s liquidators (led by Alvarez & Marsal’s Edward Middleton and Tiffany Wong) are pursuing 57 billion yuan (roughly $8.4 billion) in damages from PwC International, PwC Hong Kong, and PwC’s mainland China arm. They allege serious audit negligence and misrepresentation in the years leading up to Evergrande’s historic collapse, a King-sized property failure in a long list of major property failures. Log in to read more . . . - Paul Weiss Loses Two More Litigation Partners As Rivals Keep Picking Off Its Bench
- Panel Games: Revolut’s New Legal Model is a Quarterly Hunger Games for Big Law
If you’re a partner at a Magic Circle firm currently leaning back in your Herman Miller chair, comforted by the warmth of a three-year panel appointment, you might want to sit up. The fintech disruptor that refuses to play by the rules is, predictably, about to break yours. Revolut, the neobank recently valued at a staggering $45 billion following a secondary share sale (with some internal projections whispering closer to $75 billion), is officially binning the traditional legal panel model. In its place comes “Revolut Partners,” a system designed to treat law firms less like venerable institutions and more like high-performance software vendors. Log in to read more . . - The Happiest Lawyers In America Work At These Firms — And The Race For #1 Is Now A Photo Finish
Vault’s 2026-2027 rankings reveal O’Melveny still leads on satisfaction by a hair, Morgan Lewis took the overall crown, and Ropes & Gray jumped 36 spots. Vault just dropped its 2026-2027 Best Law Firms to Work For rankings, and for anyone watching BigLaw’s talent map, the satisfaction data is the most useful slice on the platter. It tells you, in cold associate-survey numbers, where lawyers are actually happy versus merely well-paid — and right now those two things are diverging at the top end of the market in interesting ways. Log in to see who won the industry record . . - How a Box of Hong Kong Cupcakes Triggered a $36m Law Partner Meltdown
Quick question: “If a star rainmaker built ‘their’ office, do they get to secretly take it with them – or does the partnership own everything they touch?” When the Australian Financial Review recently devoted a major feature to “the $36 million box of Hong Kong cupcakes”, it wasn’t really about baked goods – it was about how a high‑performing litigation boutique managed to blow itself up in plain sight. Log in to see what happened . . . - $230bn in Five Days, Two Partners Out the Door – Wachtell’s High-Stakes Reckoning
The firm that pays its partners $12 million a year just can’t stop losing them. Here’s why that paradox may be the most important story in Big Law right now. Wachtell Lipton broke every profitability record in Am Law 100 history in 2026 — and watched nine partners walk out the door to rivals offering something the numbers alone couldn’t match. What’s really driving the exodus from Wall Street’s most envied firm, whether the lockstep model can survive the age of the $80 million guarantee, and what it all means for the future of elite legal practice: it’s all inside. Log in to read the breaking Big Law story . .
