A colossal US$4.6 billion (NZ$7.7 billion) class action against global wealth-tech behemoth FNZ has opened in the New Zealand High Court this week, immediately sparking a fierce jurisdictional skirmish over whether the legal battleground should be Wellington or London. Billed as one of the largest corporate class actions in Asia-Pacific history, the lawsuit has pitted […]
Anthropic’s Claude for Legal Puts BigLaw‑Grade AI on a Small Firm Budget Norma Harris Anthropic has finally taken the wraps off Claude for Legal – a suite of 12 practice‑area plugins, 20+ MCP connectors into mainstream legal systems, and deep Microsoft 365 integration – and it lands squarely in the workflows where lawyers actually live.
Claude for Legal: The AI Moment Small Firms Can’t Ignore 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 »
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.
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$230bn in Five Days, Two Partners Out the Door – Wachtell’s High-Stakes Reckoning 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
In an industry where “integration” is often a buzzword for a clunky API, Smokeball and Thomson Reuters have announced a partnership that actually moves the needle. By embedding TR’s CoCounsel Legal AI directly into Smokeball’s practice management ecosystem, the two giants are attempting to bridge the historic chasm between the business of law and the
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison has parted ways with several litigation associates following its annual performance review cycle, possibly marking a structural change from the relatively recently annointed firm chair Scott Barshay (pictured).
According to reporting by The American Lawyer, the New York-based firm, which has long prided itself on avoiding public layoffs, including during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2022 financial correction . . Log in to read more . . .
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.
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John Bowie, LawFuel publisher It takes a certain perverted genius for the state broadcaster to threaten to sue a commercial rival over what it primly calls an “employment matter”. But here we are with the Maiki Sherman affair, something Maiki herself might term ‘Faggotgate’ should she be on the right side of the debacle. It’s
Doing the Mahi on Maiki: How TVNZ Tried to Bury Its Own Scandal Read More »
If you are a lawyer reviewing your options in 2026, the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and major legal compensation surveys makes one thing clear: location, specialty, and experience still dictate everything.
The national median lawyer salary stands at $151,160 as of the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2024 — the most recent official release — with approximately 747,750 lawyers in paid employment across the country. The national mean wage for lawyers is $182,760, reflecting how strongly the top earners pull the average upward.
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Average Lawyer Salary 2026: BLS Data by State, Practice Area & Experience Read More »
