45 stories beyond the front page
The 2026 Law Firm COO & CFO Forum agenda includes a session on growth from specialization to selective M&A, focused on integrating growth without losing speed, culture or client trust.
Legal Futures reports that the Professional Practices Alliance sees AI and private equity reshaping partner pay by challenging traditional input-based metrics.
Above the Law's running compensation scorecard shows Milbank as the June 2 first mover at $235,000 for the class of 2026/2025 and $455,000 for the class of 2018, with firms including McDermott, Quinn Emanuel, Katten, Susman Godfrey, Wilkinson Stekloff, Desmarais, Kellogg Hansen, Warren and Yetter Coleman moving or matching.
Lucy Murphy, Linklaters' chief growth officer, told Legal Futures that a firm designed from a blank sheet would move away from the billable hour as the primary unit of value and focus externally on outcomes, deliverables, milestones, subscriptions or risk-sharing arrangements.
Brightflag defines outside counsel management as the processes and systems legal teams use to select, engage, manage and evaluate external providers for the right outcomes at the right cost.
TyMetrix 360 announced new platform additions designed to give legal departments greater control and flexibility in managing and enforcing alternative fee arrangements.
Legal Futures' coverage of Clio's UK & Ireland Legal Insights Report says fixed or flat fees now account for 53% of matters across UK and Ireland firms, while hourly billing has dropped to 32%.
McDermott Will & Schulte announced a connected Midtown campus spanning One Vanderbilt and 343 Madison Avenue, including approximately 150,000 square feet at 343 Madison and 175 new offices at One Vanderbilt by June 2027.
A Forrester Total Economic Impact study commissioned by Thomson Reuters found a risk-adjusted 400% three-year ROI, $18.
Thomson Reuters Institute says Q1 2026 legal demand grew 2.
Law.com’s Leadership in Law Hong Kong report highlights geopolitical risk, regulatory complexity and cross-border disputes as central expectations for legal lea
Freshfields argues that foreign-investment controls now shape price, timing, remedies and risk allocation in sensitive cross-border M&A.
The EU’s new foreign-investment screening regulation requires Member States to create screening mechanisms and imposes prior authorization for targets active in specified sensitive areas.
Lawfare’s review of The Web Beneath the Waves highlights undersea cables as critical digital infrastructure shaped by geopolitical fragmentation, Chinese cable actors, US blacklisting of Huawei and HMN Tech, Russia shadow-fleet concerns and China gray-zone tactics.
Bloomberg Law reports that Vice Premier He Lifeng said China will add anti-sanctions and blocking provisions to financial legislation to counter what Beijing views as improper unilateral sanctions.
China’s new State Council Regulation on Outbound Investment takes effect July 1 and creates a centralized outbound-investment regime with national-security review, export-control limits, cross-border data-transfer constraints and countermeasures provisions.
The UK-Japan declaration commits to deeper cooperation on investment security, critical minerals, economic coercion, export controls, supply-chain resilience and dual-use technologies.
Canada amended the Ukraine Goods Remission Order to extend customs-duty relief for goods originating in Ukraine through June 9, 2027, excluding over-access supply-managed goods such as dairy, poultry and eggs.
The Supreme Court declined to review the Federal Circuit’s decision upholding List 3 and 4A China Section 301 tariffs, ending the litigation without refunds for tariffs already paid.
A June 1 proclamation revised Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper, with changes effective June 8, 2026 through December 31, 2027.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the government’s stay pending appeal in litigation over the global 10% Section 122 tariff.
British forces boarded the sanctioned shadow-fleet tanker SMYRTOS in the Channel, with the government citing domestic and international law, including UNCLOS Article 110 right-of-visit concepts and UK sanctions powers if a vessel is stateless.
The UK announced 70 new Russia sanctions covering more than 20 oil tankers, ship insurers, shipping services, LNG vessels linked to Arctic LNG 2, military procurement networks and illicit-finance actors.
OFSI fined Sabre Global Technologies Limited £1,000,920.
BIS announced a $36,184,680 settlement with Robert Bosch GmbH over foreign-produced MEMS sensor products and automotive software exported to Huawei and affiliates on the Entity List without required authorization.
Lawyers On Demand, part of Consilio, is partnering with Wordsmith to deliver AI-enabled managed services for in-house teams.
Relativity acquired AI-native legal technology company Gavel and plans to integrate its Word-based drafting, automation and document-review capabilities into RelativityOne.
Autologyx announced MCP-enabled capabilities that let approved AI agents participate directly in workflows, including updating records, creating tasks, generating documents and progressing matters.
Legora introduced Legora aOS, a purpose-built agentic operating system intended to execute complex legal work end to end from matter intake through research, drafting, review and delivery.
Anthropic suspended access to Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 after a US government directive citing national security authorities required access to be disabled for all foreign nationals, including foreign-national employees.
Legal IT Insider published Gen AI and the Practice of Law 3, a 100-plus-page report based on more than 35 hours of interviews with legal tech leaders.
Legal IT Insider’s Lexpo report from Amsterdam says the conversation has moved beyond AI experimentation into organisational change, leadership, governance and adoption.
Italian firm BonelliErede is deploying Harvey firmwide across its EMEA offices after an evaluation process led by a dedicated AI Task Force that began in May 2023.
The AI Office is seeking experts for a 15 July workshop on independence and qualification requirements for external evaluators of GPAI models with systemic risk, with expressions of interest due 21 June.
The European AI Office published a Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated content and invited providers and deployers to sign before 22 July to be listed as initial signatories.
Research commissioned by Moneypenny found consumers were less confident than law-firm leaders about AI-led interactions unless they could switch to a real person at any point.
The SRA rewrote its supervision guidance after Mazur, clarifying that non-authorised staff can conduct litigation tasks when working on behalf of an authorised person who retains responsibility and exercises appropriate direction, supervision and control.
Legal Services Board research found consumers generally support legal AI, with around three-quarters believing it could make services easier, cheaper and more accessible.
Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne welcomed Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, highlighting proposed recognition of privacy as a fundamental right, children’s interests, privacy impact assessments and stronger enforcement powers.
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner found that Grok’s AI image-generation tool launched without proper safeguards or sufficient consideration of privacy harms, enabling non-consensual sexualized deepfakes.
Clio acquired Jurisage, the Canadian legal AI and data company behind CiteRight and an AI-ready dataset of more than 470,000 Canadian cases across more than 40 courts.
Morrison Foerster announced a strategic partnership and firmwide deployment of Legora as a core AI technology platform for its attorneys.
Faegre Drinker is deploying Harvey firmwide to lawyers, consulting professionals and staff after a multi-phase evaluation process with extensive lawyer testing and feedback.
New York’s Unified Court System adopted Part 161, effective June 1, requiring lawyers and parties using AI for court submissions to understand the tool’s limits and independently ensure filings contain no fabricated cases, statutes or other material.
A Legal Futures feature says UK lawyers may save 140 hours a year with AI, rising to 240 hours within three years, while 78% of legal professionals using AI can handle more work and 77% say it improves work quality.