Sonia Hickey, LawFuel contributing editor Anyone tracking the London legal market has watched this coming for three years. On 15 June 2026, Paul Hodkinson at Law.com International (left) was the first to put it on the record. London’s Magic Circle, he wrote, now consists of Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Paul Weiss, Simpson Thacher […]
The Magic Circle Just Got Replaced. Four Of The New Five Are American Read More »
Half of women working in legal services say their current working pattern is unsustainable for their long‑term health, and 67% have considered changing jobs or taking a career break because of wellbeing concerns. For a profession obsessed with retention and reputation, that is less a wellbeing problem and more a pipeline crisis. The new Pressure Points:
New Zealand’s premium legal market is dominated by four names everyone knows. But beneath that familiar canopy sits an elite tier of specialist boutiques that punch absurdly above their weight — firms that regularly win work the large players refer out, whether for conflicts, specialist depth, or simply because the client wants a partner who’ll actually run the matter.
Our inaugural New Zealand ranking draws on Chambers, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, and five years of NZ Law Awards data to identify the boutiques that genuinely compete at the top table.
The findings? One Auckland litigation firm has won Specialist Firm of the Year four times in five years — a dominance unmatched anywhere in the market. Another is described by peers as providing services “at or better than the litigation departments of the largest firms.” And at the independent bar, a single chambers holds more King’s Counsel appointments than any other set in the country.
We’ve also identified the corporate boutique operating at “the top end” of the M&A market with just six lawyers — and the insurance specialist that’s scaled to 90 lawyers without taking a single non-insurance instruction.
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Former Legends Global Asia Pacific Group General Counsel Adam Lister has launched a specialist boutique law firm targeting the fast-growing intersection of sport, entertainment, venues and major infrastructure. The law firm, which opened in April 2026, is focused on advising governments, venue operators, promoters, investors and supply chain partners on high-value transactions, commercial partnerships and
Ex-Legends Global GC Adam Lister Launches Specialist Sports and Infrastructure Law Firm Read More »
Generative AI has arrived inside BigLaw carrying a question that no one is quite ready to answer out loud: if the technology can do what junior associates do, what exactly are junior associates for? It is the most uncomfortable conversation in the legal profession right now and it is only getting louder from what we
The AI Question BigLaw Doesn’t Want Junior Lawyers Asking Read More »
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is steering SpaceX through what has become the largest stock market debut ever, while Davis Polk & Wardwell is guiding the underwriting banks led by Goldman Sachs. Reports from Bloomberg indicate that SpaceX has committed to $25.5 million in legal costs in its amended S-1 — a figure that dwarfs the typical IPO legal spend, though it’s broadly in line with what other mega-deals have paid out.
For context, the largest US IPO of 2025, Medline’s $6.3 billion listing advised by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, generated $25.2 million in legal fees and expenses, while Cerebras Systems’ $5.5 billion IPO, handled by Latham & Watkins, racked up $4.1 million.
SpaceX’s number sits almost exactly where Medline landed except SpaceX is aiming for a deal roughly twelve times the size.
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SpaceX’s $75 Billion Liftoff – Meet the Lawyers Steering History’s Biggest IPO Read More »
>> See LawFuel’s Power List Law Firms Kennedys has spent the past decade quietly doing something many law firms talk about but few achieve: building a genuinely global practice. Now the insurance and disputes specialist has smashed through the £450 million revenue barrier, with North America and Asia Pacific driving double-digit growth as the firm
Kennedy’s Report 12th Year of Growth As The Firm Moves Towards Its $1 Billion Target Read More »
Law360 Pulse covered Kilpatrick’s recent launch of Kilpatrick Labs, an innovation program focused on developing and deploying artificial intelligence tools for the firm’s attorneys, professional staff and clients. “We didn’t want to bolt AI onto the practice — we wanted to rebuild around it,” Charles Gray, partner at Kilpatrick and leader of Kilpatrick Labs, said in a statement
Legal AI – Kilpatrick Townsend Launches Kilpatrick Labs Read More »
The billable hour isn’t dead in the UK, but for the first time it’s looking genuinely ill. A growing slice of work is being priced on fixed or value‑based fees, clients are pushing back on “time spent” as a proxy for value, and AI is quietly blowing up the economics of the sacred six‑minute unit.
And we’ve talked about the BH’s death many times before.
The billable hour’s first real wobble
UK legal spend is still mostly billed hourly, but value‑based and fixed‑fee work has crept up to take a sizeable minority share of the market, and it’s moving in one direction. Clients like predictability, finance teams like budgetable numbers, and nobody likes the month‑end surprise when a “quick” matter turns into a timesheet novella.
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UK Law Firms Are Finally Coming for the Billable Hour – Sort Of Read More »
London-based Mishcon de Reya has opened a Dubai office in DWTC Free Zone marking the firm’s continued growth in the Middle East. The firm has offices in Singapore and an associated office in Hong Kong and continues to grow its globasl links in its specialist areas. The media statement announcing the latest move is below
