David Nicol’s Post

⭐ US biglaw moves of the week ⭐ Firms continue to build in M&A and funds this week with multiple high-profile moves in the market. - Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP continues to add lateral partners with the addition of Andrew Ahern, Alisa Waxman and Luke Eldridge to its funds practice in New York. All three partners join from Debevoise. - Another firm that is no stranger to lateral partner hires, Paul Hastings adds shareholder activism partner Andrew Goodman from Goodwin in NYC and Boston. - Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP hires securities law specialist James Rapp as a Partner in NYC. Rapp joins from Skadden. - The trend of lateral moves in the energy sector continues. Winston & Strawn LLP hires two partners from McDermott in Houston. Kevin Brophy and Ming Lei both focus on Energy M&A and PE deals. Meanwhile Baker Botts has added M&A Partner Rebecca Seidl Inglesby from Mayer Brown. Follow me for more #biglaw market commentary, intel and roles

First, Latham and Kirkland are amazingly successful firms by all accounts and full of some of the smartest people you’ll meet. $7+ billion ($7,000,000,000!) in revenues - holy smokes. For most of those attorneys and practice groups, it makes all the sense in the world (pun intended) to be at massive law firms with global reach and cross-selling opportunities. If done correctly, those platforms provide clients with the most optimal comprehensive service provider and give attorneys more strategic advantages, both internally and externally, than they get charged by their firm for overhead. Second, for other attorneys and practice groups, particularly state and local practice groups like tax-exempt bonds/public finance, you may not need global reach to help your clients like the local school district who needs help building that new high school. In that respect, taking your practice to a local/regional/national firm may allow you to continue providing nationally elite services without the global overhead. It may also provide more freedoms and more agency over your practice’s operations, because decisions are made at a local level with people in the room generally possessing more personal knowledge of the issues. (If this is you, please consider this a shameless plug to send a message to Cantu Harden Montoya LLP, and let’s talk!) In typical lawyer fashion, the answer to the right fit question is probably, “It depends,” but this will be an interesting trend to continue to monitor.

We need to talk about Latham & Watkins. Despite being one of the world’s most successful law firms, Latham has seen several high profile partners in Europe walk out the door this year, many of whom have gone to rivals like Sidley Austin LLP, Milbank LLP and of course Kirkland & Ellis. Why? Let’s go back a bit. The broad view is that most global law firms are “chasing” Kirkland and Latham—number one and number two in the world. But this obscures a key fact: Latham is chasing too. Hard. And that’s had consequences, sources tell me. The world’s only $7 billion+ law firm, Kirkland has created an industry-wide ‘pull’, with certain firms in the chasing pack intensifying their focus on profitability and high profit margin (prompting a U.S. hyper-focus), which intel suggests is leading to slimmer equity ranks, higher U.S. partner pay and a withdrawal from less profitable regions. Are U.S. law firms like Latham becoming U.S. law firms again? Read my piece, with input from Jennifer Spatz and Paul Hodkinson: https://lnkd.in/ey98HWmg #law #lawyers #corporatelaw

𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗪𝗿𝗮𝗽 𝗨𝗽 | 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗟𝗮𝘄 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 We are close now to the holiday slow down, but there's still some really interesting moves happening across #biglaw: Morrison Foerster has hired a 3-partner ECVC group from Goodwin. Peter Fusco, Jae Zhou and Frank Paz join in NYC alongside at least 4 associates. Fusco will co-chair the practice. Boies Schiller Flexner LLP adds litigators on both coasts: James Keyte, formerly of Skadden, joins in NYC. Keyte has expertise in antitrust and sports. Enoch Liang, IP litigator, joins in San Francisco from boutique firm LTL Attorneys. The new joiners are announced in the same week news breaks about BSF handing out million dollar bonuses to some associates! Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP has hired real estate partner Peter Bergan from Loeb in Chicago. Bergan focuses on commercial developments and infrastructure projects - including digital infrastructure. & two more lawyers leave the SEC for Big Law ahead of the upcoming administration change: Gibson Dunn has hired former SEC enforcement senior officer Osman Nawaz in NYC. Nawaz boosts Goodwin's securities enforcement and white-collar defense and investigations capabilities. Freshfields also hires SEC veteran Melissa Hodgman who joined last week in DC to focus on white collar defense, global investigations and strategic risk. Have a nice weekend all! 𝘍𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴.

“Breaking complex legal shifts into market insights” is precisely the superpower I’d have asked for anyway… Here's the other stuff in my 2024 LinkedIn Rewind, by Coauthor.studio: 2024 revealed the true cost of Big Law's relentless pursuit of profitability—and it's reshaping the entire legal industry. Elite law firms are transforming themselves, sometimes at the expense of their own traditions. From office closures to partner de-equitization, from rebrands to radical restructuring, the push for higher profits is leaving no stone unturned. Three developments defined this transformation: The Herbert Smith Freehills-Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP merger showed us what happens when global ambition meets market reality. A $2 billion combination that gives both firms what they needed: U.S. credibility for HSF, global reach for Kramer. https://lnkd.in/eJ-h5auG Latham & Watkins' European partner exodus revealed the hidden cost of chasing Kirkland & Ellis. As one source put it: "Are U.S. law firms becoming only U.S. law firms again?" https://lnkd.in/ezZHKCkD Freshfields rebrand wasn't just about a new logo—it was about America. Dropping "Bruckhaus Deringer" spoke volumes about where the firm sees its future. https://lnkd.in/e42XC8rG What's emerging is a new hierarchy of global law firms. At the top, a select group of $2 billion+ revenue generators with genuine cross-border capability. Below them, firms making hard choices about where to compete—and where to retreat. Looking ahead to 2025: Watch for more continental European offices of U.S. firms to close as attention (and investment) shifts stateside. The march toward profit-per-partner supremacy isn't slowing. The question is: how many traditions, offices, and partnerships will be sacrificed along the way? #lawyers #lawfirms #corporatelaw

On June 26, I gave a presentation at Lawline's virtual program, Getting Succession Planning Right. Succession is inevitable. All lawyers eventually leave practice, and when they do, their younger partners will inherit their law firms. But not all firms are sustainable. A firm that has no plan for replacing the revenue once brought in by retiring partners cannot guarantee their clients uninterrupted service. This makes succession planning essential to a firm’s sustainability. Those who attended this CLE program learned how to create and execute succession plans for transitioning retiring partners’ clients and firm ownership to the next generation of leaders. The slides from this presentation are available at this link: https://lnkd.in/gRfaweC7 #sucessionplanning #lawfirmprofitability #driverevenue Jordan Furlong Patrick Johansen John Remsen, Jr.

B+B partner Howard Rosenberg has long been an architect of trends in talent growth. Now, he has written in the New York Law Journal about an important one involving private equity. With law firms relying on strategic lateral additions to reach growth goals, Howard details a future in which private equity could facilitate lateral hiring at scale for law firms. To understand the opportunity on both sides of the equation, read the full NYLJ article below. #lawfirms #talentacquisition #laterals #privateequity

If lateral growth is part of your law firm strategy, then please read this article written by my partner and the Head of our Talent, Information and Analytics practice, Howard Rosenberg. #lawfirms #talentacquisition #laterals #privateequity

Law firms, including Dentons, Gibson Dunn, and Troutman Pepper, feature in this week's edition of People Moves rounding up changes at firms providing services to the alternative assets industry. Read more, via Preqin news: https://okt.to/AG5Edk #alternativesassets #privatemarketnews #alternativesassets

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐚𝐰 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐬, 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫? Because profitability often correlates with headcount, I think that most business-minded people would answer "𝘺𝘦𝘴." However, if you're a Legal Associate who is in pursuit of a more intimate atmosphere with lean teams and perhaps less congested paths to advancement, you may approach this questions differently. Regardless, an increased overall headcount is a great indicator of positive market trends - and that's what we saw across many of the top 100 #BigLaw firms in #NewYorkCity this year, with total headcount among them growing by about 4% (𝘓𝘢𝘸.𝘤𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴). The top-10 firms by attorney headcount in NYC doesn't hold many surprises: 1. Kirkland & Ellis: 842 2. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP: 803 3. Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP: 782 4. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP: 735 5. Latham & Watkins: 717 6. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates: 650 7. Debevoise & Plimpton: 648 8. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP: 603 9. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP: 535 10. Fried Frank: 493 In terms of percentage growth, however, it was Latham & Watkins pacing the top-10 and growing its New York team by a whopping 10%. They were followed closely by global behemoths Kirkland & Ellis and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, who each increased the number of attorneys under their banners by 6%, while Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP grew by a healthy 4.8%. And a quick shout out to a few firms who fell outside the Top-10 in total headcount but grew at a remarkable pace over the past calendar year: litigation specialists Quinn Emanuel (up 38% to 384) and Selendy Gay PLLC (up by 36% to 132) - who reminded us that in NYC Lit is still lit! #legalmarket