As charge-out rates rocket alongside inflation and interest rates, top in-house lawyers say that the need to revolutionise the billable hour model is more urgent than ever.

Insiders and other commentators say the star London private equity partner will take 'many millions' worth of business with him, as others attribute his success to the unrivalled platform Kirkland offered.

The majority of in-house lawyers in a recent study reported feeling stressed or burned out in their current roles and many planned to leave corporate legal departments altogether.

Precarious law firm partnerships have been disrupted by pandemic-era working conditions, industry consultants, recruiters and firm leaders have observed. New alliances have been formed across offices at the expense of the ties that used to bind lawyers with regular office attendance.

The largest increases were at companies with more than $20 billion in revenue, where median total legal spend rose to $80 million, according to the annual Law Department Management Benchmarking Report.

“I think many people would rather work on a new problem than a settled problem. Here, there is a lot more opportunity to work on unsettled legal and policy questions, said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress.

Demand fell last year for the Am Law 100, was flat for the Am Law second hundred, and grew for midsize firms. But data and history suggest this isn't the Second Hundred eating the 100's lunch.

The findings show that the pressure on legal professionals is higher now than ever,” according to the Wolters Kluwer report.

As lateral mobility has increased, law firms have placed additional pressures on business professionals, from human resources, marketing and those tasked with checking conflicts.

The pandemic may have accelerated the trend of companies winnowing down their lists of preferred providers.

As firms fight for Big Law standing, a segmentation analysis of the Am Law 100 reveals shifts in the pecking order.

A patchy corporate market has created a mismatch between staffing and demand levels at several law firms with broader client bases that stretch beyond the tech sector.

Regulatory pressures also continue to increase, which place additional emphasis on legal teams to maximize resources, financially and in time.” said Amy Yeung, general counsel and chief privacy officer of Lotame.

One driver of the trend is in-house frustration over law firm inefficiencies, such as attorneys' showing off how much they know and commenting excessively on draft documents.

OpenAI has scooped up Emma Redmond, whose resume includes stints as Stripe, Ancestry and LinkedIn.

A retrospective on law firm pandemic performance sheds light on the future, and hints at a new model of success.

“There have been a string of opinions that have put lawyers in a position where if they were to do their job competently they would essentially be putting their clients at risk because they would be creating documents that can be used in litigation or an investigatory proceeding,” said David Saunders, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery.

A dozen years of data since the Great Recession shows resilient law firms rose above the competition over the past decade. In the fraught present moment, history holds lessons for the latest competitive reset.

Only 25% of the more than 200 attorneys responding say they feel fully prepared to deal with a cyberattack.

The data shows in-house counsel are being squeezed from all sides, and in a big way,” said Jason Winmill, managing partner of Argopoint.

If law firms try to charge me increased fees, I won’t be paying them', said one general counsel, reflecting a wider unease among clients about the situation.

To continue to increase [associate] salaries and then try to pass it on, that's just not defensible, given all the challenges businesses are facing in this environment, said Michael Wu, the chief legal officer of Bath & Body Works.

“I think that as economic challenges heighten, there is a risk that ESG becomes a nice-to-have rather than a must-have,” one general counsel said.

Lateral law firm hiring has rebounded during the second quarter of 2023 to match and even exceed historical industry averages, according to data released Tuesday by Decipher Investigative Intelligence.