BARBRI Swallows Startup ‘Lega’ To Teach Lawyers How To Talk To Robots Sonia Hickey “AI fluency” is now part of joining the bar before lawyers are let loose on the billable hour. BARBRI. The bar prep behemoth that still haunts your stress dreams has just acquired Lega, a generative AI platform founded by legal tech […]
Sonia Hickey, LawFuel contributing editor At UC Berkeley School of Law, the future of lawyering is apparently… 1996 with better stationery. Beginning Summer 2026, Berkeley Law’s new Artificial Intelligence Policy makes prohibition the institutional default. The rule is clear – no AI to “conceptualize, outline, draft, revise, translate, or edit” any work submitted for credit.
The £240k Problem: Why NZ Firms Are Losing Lawyers To London New Zealand’s legal job market is heating up, but for many large and boutique firms the real story is not just demand – it is the steady bleed of 3–4 year PQE lawyers to London, where US‑based firms in particular are offering money local
London’s Pay Lure Is Draining NZ’s Mid‑Level Talent Read More »
The rise of “luxury lawyers” signals how seriously the world’s top brands now treat law as a core business function, not a back‑office cost. And ‘luxury lawyer’ are a growing sub-branch, well coiffed and dressed of course, in the legal universe. Luxury law sits at the intersection of fashion, beauty, hospitality, automotive, art and high‑end
Who Are the “Luxury Lawyers” Powering the Global Elite? 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 »
Two seasoned Public Defence Service lawyers have swapped the security of state-funded work for the sharp end of private practice. Brittany Holstein and Elena Stavrovska have officially launched Lockstone Criminal Defence Lawyers, bringing hard-won courtroom grit and a client-first ethos to Christchurch. Holstein, who spent eight years at PDS, marked her departure with a candid
PDS Power Move – Brittany Holstein and Elena Stavrovska Launch Criminal Defence Law Firm Read More »
Roughly one in twenty associates who start at a top US firm will make equity partner there.
That is the number nobody puts in the recruiting brochure. The brochure says the partnership track is “approximately eight to ten years.” That is technically true and practically misleading — because it describes the timeline of people who finish, not the probability of finishing.
The honest answer is that the BigLaw partnership track is a twelve-year funnel with five stages, four exit ramps, and a survival rate that would not pass muster as a clinical trial outcome.
Here is what each stage actually looks like.
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Trainee To Equity Partner: The 12-Year BigLaw Timeline, Mapped Honestly 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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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 »
The U.S. law firm lateral market shows healthy expansion and also provides a strategic shift toward senior leverage and a surprising surge at smaller firms.
According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) 2025 Survey of Law Firms on Lateral and 3L Hiring (released April 22, 2026), total lateral hiring volume rose 16.4% year-over-year among the 305 offices/firms reporting comparable data.
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