Private wealth lawyers Boodle Hatfield have announced that it is set to hit £49.5m revenue this year – marking the firm’s second consecutive year of double-digit growth. The results for the London-based firm come off the back of a strategic focus on private capital for the firm, which has doubled its revenue in a decade. […]
Private equity-backed Setfords Solicitors has appointed investment bankers to explore strategic options including a potential sale that could fetch well north of £110 million, according to reports from The Sunday Times. The Guildford-based firm, which pioneered the consultant lawyer platform model in the UK, has grown revenues by 35% to £67.7 million over the past
It is May 2026, and the BigLaw salary scale has not moved for two and a half years.
That sentence would have sounded unthinkable in 2021, when Milbank ignited a comp war that pushed first-year associates from $190,000 to $215,000 in eight weeks. Three years on, Class of 2025 first-years are starting on $225,000 — the same number Milbank put on the board in November 2023. Eighth-years are still on $435,000. Cravath confirmed in its November 18, 2025 bonus memo, in writing, that base salaries would not rise in 2026.
The lockstep is intact. The escalator has stopped.
So when does it start again, we ask – and presumably you want the answer to that so we’ve done our best to pose some on-the-button questions.
Log in and check how the salary scale looks now . . .
The Phantom Raise: Why The 2026 BigLaw Scale Hasn’t Moved — And Which Firm Breaks First Read More »
1,374,720 Active Lawyers in 2026 – Salaries, Demographics, State Rankings & BigLaw Trends Sonia Hickey, LawFuel contributing editor Knowing how many lawyers are in the US tells you more than just a headcount. It shows where the legal job market is heating up, how the profession is shifting demographically, what new graduates can realistically expect
How Many Lawyers Are in the US? (2026 Statistics) Read More »
John B. Quinn, the Harvard-trained litigator who turned a scrappy four-lawyer Los Angeles firm into the world’s most feared litigation powerhouse, which also achieved ‘fearsome profits’, has stepped down from the helm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan after four decades at the top.
The announcement was made to partners on Sunday and described by some in the legal press as arriving “abruptly”, bringing to a close one of the most remarkable leadership tenures in Big Law history.
Log in to read . . .
Neal Katyal, the superstar legal hotshot, set off a minor legal‑Twitter firestorm by posting a victory‑lap tweet and TED‑talk teaser crediting a bespoke AI tool, “Harvey,” with helping him win the Supreme Court tariffs case—a bit of self‑branding that many lawyers found tone‑deaf and over‑the‑top. A subsequent reader poll by David Lat found roughly 70
Neal Katyal, Harvey AI and the Supreme Court TED‑Gate Read More »
AI is Eating the Entry-level Lunch For years, partners have whispered about how many juniors they actually need if a machine can read 10,000 documents in an hour. This week, MinterEllison in Australia stopped whispering and started acting. The firm has effectively put the Australian legal market on notice, slashing its 2025-26 graduate intake by
MinterEllison Slashing Graduate Jobs: Is AI Replacing Junior Lawyers? Read More »
Legal AI Just Went All Hollywood The legal technology sector has seen plenty of bold claims. But very few startups have had the audacity — or the funding — to enlist a People magazine Sexiest Man Alive to sell AI software to managing partners. Swedish legal AI company Legora is doing exactly that. “We felt
The acquisition adds a critical new layer to Legora’s platform: real-time visibility into regulatory change. Regulation is growing more complex, more global, and more consequential every year and the tools available to legal and compliance teams to track it have failed to keep pace. Graceview was built to replace the patchwork of fragmented, noisy sources
Smaller class, sustained demand, and a notable dip in BigLaw and government hiring: what the latest ABA numbers actually mean for law firm recruiting and your next career move.
The legal job market held firm for the Class of 2025, but the full picture is more nuanced than the headline rate suggests. According to employment data released April 22, 2026 by the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, 87.7% of 2025 graduates from Council-accredited law schools were employed in full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage positions as of March 16, 2026 — roughly ten months after graduation.
Log in to read more . .
