US Firms
Every Folio briefing story that mentions Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, most recent first. Stories are sourced daily from a curated set of legal and business publications.
M&A · Mon, 25 May 2026
American law firms operating in the **City of London** have secured close to **20%** of high-value litigation in the **UK commercial court** — the apex forum for complex business disputes — up from approximately 16% in the five years to 2019, according to new research covering the period to 2025. The study identifies more than 100 US firms with a London presence and concludes they have deliberately and aggressively targeted the top end of the UK litigation market. **Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan** was identified as the most active US firm in this segment (182 Commercial Court claims between 2020 and 2025), with **Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton** and **Reed Smith** both around 155 claims each. The findings capture a structural shift in City legal services that extends well beyond disputes: US firms have used litigation capability as a calling card to win mandates across M&A advisory, leveraged finance, and capital markets work, increasingly competing directly with **Magic Circle** and Silver Circle firms on the largest transactions. The research underscores why US firms have invested heavily in lateral hires across London transactional and contentious practices — a trend visible in recent weeks across multiple City practice groups. For candidates targeting elite US firm roles, the data reinforces that these offices are now full-service platforms, not satellite outposts, and that competition for top mandates in the London market is genuinely multi-polar.
Regulation · Tue, 19 May 2026
The **Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)** has signalled a heightened focus on UK consumer law enforcement, with expert analysis confirming that recent CMA actions represent a new regulatory spotlight on consumer-facing businesses operating in the UK. The development arrives alongside a significant lateral hire that illustrates how seriously major firms are investing in UK and EU competition capability: **Kirkland & Ellis** has recruited a team of four senior competition partners from **Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton** - **Robbert Snelders** (a 30+ year Cleary veteran), **Thomas Graf**, and **Conor Opdebeeck-Wilson** in Brussels, and **Henry Mostyn** in London. The team has worked closely with **Google** as well as other high-profile clients, and the move is explicitly framed as part of Kirkland's strategy to expand its investigations capabilities in the **EU** and **UK**. The two stories together paint a coherent picture: the CMA's expanding consumer law agenda — which runs alongside its existing competition and merger control functions — is generating sustained demand for specialist regulatory advice. Separately, the **Bank of England**, **FCA (Financial Conduct Authority)**, and **HM Treasury** issued a joint statement warning UK financial services firms to take active steps to manage cybersecurity risks stemming from frontier AI, noting that AI capabilities are "already exceeding what a skilled practitioner could achieve" and warning of amplified cyber threats to firms' safety, customers, and market integrity. Firms were directed to existing cyber resilience guidance from the **Bank of England**, **PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority)**, and **FCA** published in October 2025.
M&A · Sun, 10 May 2026
A sweeping federal indictment has charged a 30-person insider trading ring that prosecutors allege operated for a decade inside the upper echelons of **Big Law**, recruiting Ivy League-trained attorneys from firms including **Wachtell**, **Latham**, **Willkie**, **Goodwin**, **Cleary**, **Sidley**, **Weil**, and **DLA Piper**. Prosecutors describe the network as one of the most extensive M&A intelligence operations ever prosecuted on American soil, with participants allegedly treating confidential merger data as a tradeable asset rather than privileged client information. The core allegation is that lawyers with access to live M&A deal information — spanning deal structuring, due diligence, and documentation phases — fed that intelligence into a coordinated trading scheme across an extended period. The breadth of firm representation across the indictment reflects the network's reach into multiple practice groups at multiple institutions simultaneously. The case speaks directly to the fundamental duty of confidentiality that underpins attorney-client privilege and the obligations of legal professionals handling material non-public information (**MNPI**) in transactional contexts. In the UK and EU, equivalent conduct would engage the **Market Abuse Regulation (MAR)** and the criminal offence of insider dealing under the **Criminal Justice Act 1993**. The US prosecution will generate immediate compliance reviews across transactional law firms globally, with London offices of affected firms likely to face questions from the **FCA** and their own ethics committees.
Disputes · Sun, 10 May 2026
Federal prosecutors in the United States have filed a sweeping indictment against a **30-person network** of lawyers, traders and financial professionals, alleging that lawyers at eight of America's most prominent firms — including **Wachtell**, **Latham & Watkins**, **Willkie Farr**, **Goodwin Procter**, **Cleary Gottlieb**, **Sidley Austin**, **Weil Gotshal**, and **DLA Piper** — systematically monetised confidential merger intelligence over approximately a decade. Prosecutors describe it as one of the most extensive M&A intelligence-based insider trading schemes ever prosecuted on American soil. The mechanics of the alleged scheme centre on attorneys exploiting the privileged access to live deal information that their transactional roles provided — across due diligence, documentation, and signing processes — to place or facilitate trades in target company securities before public announcements. The duration of the alleged conduct, spanning roughly ten years across multiple firms, suggests a coordinated network rather than isolated opportunistic behaviour. For disputes lawyers, the case raises complex issues around the scope of attorney-client privilege in enforcement proceedings, the evidentiary treatment of documents seized from law firm servers, and potential regulatory referrals to bar associations. In the UK, analogous conduct would engage the **FCA**'s market abuse enforcement regime, the **Criminal Justice Act 1993** insider dealing offences, and the **Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)**'s professional conduct rules — all of which UK firms will now be reviewing.
International · Mon, 4 May 2026
**Cleary Gottlieb** has announced that **David Christmas** will join its London office on 5 May as a partner in its **Global Funds** practice — the firm's seventh partner hire in London so far in 2026. The hire follows a record-breaking 2025 in which the firm promoted and laterally hired a combined 41 partners globally across corporate, funds, capital solutions, antitrust, and litigation practices. Christmas's hire is framed by the firm as part of a deliberate strategy to expand European private capital capabilities. Cleary's Global Funds team holds a **Band 1** ranking for fund formation in the US by **Chambers**, and has advised on funds with aggregate commitments exceeding **$500 billion** over its 30-year history. The London hire is designed to extend that platform into European fund formation, as asset management clients increasingly diversify strategies across private equity, credit, real assets, and secondaries markets. The appointment is overseen by London partner and Executive Committee member **Tihir Sarkar**, with the European funds offering led by **Mike James** in London. Cleary has operated a London office since 1971 — one of the first US firms to establish a permanent UK presence — and the office focuses on M&A, finance, capital markets, disputes, and competition work with a strong cross-border European mandate. The broader context is a sustained lateral hiring wave at elite US firms across the City, driven by competition for European private capital mandates as private equity and credit fund formation volumes grow.
AI & Law · Sat, 4 Apr 2026
**Michael Gerstenzang**, a senior partner at **Cleary Gottlieb**, has publicly stated that artificial intelligence is placing the billable hour — the foundational revenue model of major law firms — under sustained and potentially terminal pressure. The statement, made in a Business Insider interview, represents one of the most senior public acknowledgements from within Big Law of AI's disruptive commercial impact. Gerstenzang argued that law firms must evolve their business models in response, drawing on his experience driving earlier strategic pivots at Cleary. He noted that the disruption mirrors historical transitions the profession has navigated, but characterised the current moment as qualitatively different because AI can automate not just administrative tasks but substantive legal analysis — the core of what law firms charge for. The billable hour works as follows: lawyers record time in six-minute increments and charge clients based on hourly rates, typically ranging from £300 to over £1,500 per hour for senior partners at elite London firms. As AI tools compress the time required to complete tasks — from document review to first-draft contract production — the billable hour model faces structural pressure: clients increasingly expect to pay for outcomes rather than hours, and AI allows smaller teams to deliver equivalent output in a fraction of the time. Gerstenzang's comments sit within a broader market debate. **Anthropic** has said its Claude model now writes up to 90% of its own code; legal AI tools including **Harvey**, **CoCounsel**, and **Lexis+ AI** are already embedded in workflows at elite firms. His view — that new, smaller entrants could challenge established behemoths — reflects a growing consensus that the next competitive threat to Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms may not come from each other but from AI-native legal service providers.