Magic Circle
Every Folio briefing story that mentions Linklaters, most recent first. Stories are sourced daily from a curated set of legal and business publications.
International · Tue, 21 Jul 2026
**Linklaters** reported revenue of **£2.5 billion** for the fiscal year ended 30 April 2026, a rise of **6.8%** on the prior year, according to Bloomberg Law News. Pre-tax profit reached **£1.2 billion**, up **11.6%** year-on-year, and profit per equity partner (PEP) rose **11.4%** to **£2.5 million**. Firmwide managing partner **Paul Lewis** described Asia as the standout story of the year, noting that the firm's Asian performance had recovered strongly after a period of subdued activity in the region. The US, where Linklaters has been building its transactional presence, was also cited as a strong contributor. The results place Linklaters among the strongest performers in the **Magic Circle** for fiscal 2026, with profit growth outpacing revenue growth, suggesting a tighter cost base or improved leverage on high-value work. The firm's international spread, with particular exposure to Asia and US deal flow, is increasingly a differentiator as London-centric practices face a more uncertain domestic market under the new Burnham government.
International · Sun, 5 Jul 2026
**Clifford Chance**, **Slaughter and May**, **Linklaters**, and **Freshfields** occupied the top four positions in the UK M&A adviser rankings for the first half of 2026, reversing recent years in which US-headquartered firms had been gaining market share, according to Law.com data. UK deal value climbed **111% year-on-year** to **$332.4 billion**, driven by several large-cap transactions and a rebound in cross-border activity. The surge in UK deal value reflects a confluence of factors: the depreciation of sterling relative to the dollar making UK assets attractive to overseas buyers, the resolution of a degree of post-Brexit regulatory uncertainty, and a broader global M&A recovery as interest rate conditions stabilise. UK domestic firms reclaiming the top advisory positions suggests that client relationships and deep knowledge of English law documentation — rather than US platform breadth alone — remain the decisive competitive advantage for the largest UK-nexus transactions. **Kirkland & Ellis** also featured in the rankings. The data covers the period January to June 2026 and ranks advisers by deal value on completed and announced transactions with a UK nexus. No financial or league table methodology details beyond those stated have been extracted from the available source material, which sits behind a subscriber paywall.
Capital Markets · Fri, 3 Jul 2026
**Clifford Chance**, **Slaughter and May**, **Linklaters**, and **Freshfields** led the UK M&A legal adviser rankings for the first half of 2026, reclaiming the top four positions from US-headquartered rivals and bucking a trend of recent years in which American firms had steadily captured market share. UK deal value climbed **111% year-on-year** to **$332.4 billion**, driven by several large-cap transactions and a rebound in cross-border activity. The data, reported in the context of **London Stock Exchange Group** figures and broader global deal-flow analysis, sits alongside a separate dataset showing worldwide M&A volumes rising approximately 50% in H1 2026, with mega-deals (transactions above a certain large-cap threshold) doubling. At the global level, **Kirkland & Ellis** and **Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz** topped the rankings by total principal deal value. The UK domestic resurgence reflects the scale of inbound cross-border activity targeting British assets — a trend noted by market participants throughout H1 — as well as the ability of Magic Circle firms to defend mandates on the largest domestic and multi-jurisdictional transactions. The 111% year-on-year jump in UK deal value is a striking headline figure, though it partly reflects depressed baseline comparators from H1 2025. The pipeline of large-cap UK corporate transactions continues to be a primary revenue driver for City firms, and the rankings data confirms that domestic advisory relationships remain competitive with US firm penetration at the top of the market.
Energy & Tech · Fri, 3 Jul 2026
**Genel Energy**, a Kurdistan-focused oil and gas producer, has agreed to acquire **Capricorn Energy** for **$360 million**, in a transaction in which **Linklaters** is acting as legal adviser. The deal represents a significant consolidation move in the upstream oil and gas sector, combining two companies with operations primarily in emerging-market and frontier hydrocarbon basins. Capricorn Energy — formerly Cairn Energy — has undergone a prolonged strategic repositioning over recent years following asset sales in India and a pivot toward North Africa and other international upstream positions. A $360 million acquisition price, if confirmed at close, would represent a notable premium in a sector where many independent E&P (exploration and production) companies have struggled to command full-cycle valuations given energy transition pressures and volatile commodity prices. Genel Energy has historically operated in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where it holds production assets. The combination raises questions about portfolio diversification, funding structure, and regulatory approvals — including potentially from the jurisdictions in which Capricorn holds operating licences. **Linklaters**' involvement confirms Magic Circle engagement on the buyer side. The sources do not name advisers acting for Capricorn or financial advisers to either party.
International · Sat, 6 Jun 2026
**Linklaters** Paris has hired a senior public law and regulatory partner from **Weil, Gotshal & Manges**, bringing across a three-lawyer team in a move described as quickly making up for a partner departure to **Jones Day** earlier in the same week. The hire follows a separate earlier blow to Weil's French public law capability: just three months before this move, Weil lost the head of its French public law and government affairs practice to **Bredin Prat**, a leading independent French firm. The cumulative departures represent a significant depletion of Weil's French regulatory and public law bench. The named incoming partner is **Marc Lordonnois**, who joins Linklaters Paris with two additional lawyers from the Weil team. Public law and regulatory practices in Paris cover matters including administrative law challenges to regulatory decisions, government affairs, and EU regulatory proceedings — work that has grown in strategic importance as EU regulatory activity has intensified across financial services, technology, and energy sectors. For **Linklaters**, the hire strengthens a practice area directly relevant to its cross-border EU regulatory advisory work, at a moment when the Paris office's positioning in French public law had been challenged by the Jones Day departure.
Energy & Tech · Sat, 9 May 2026
**Linklaters** has launched **Applied Intelligence**, a new practice designed to build **bespoke AI solutions** tailored to individual clients and specific matters. Announced on 5 May 2026, the practice unites attorneys and data scientists to construct custom AI tools and workflows for complex engagements involving uncommonly large and complex document and data sets — resources that have historically sat outside individual practice groups. The practice was co-founded by **Tom Quoroll**, a structured finance partner and chair of the firm's AI programme, and **Sarah Barnard**, Linklaters' director of AI delivery; Quoroll told Law.com that Applied Intelligence will work alongside clients and other internal practices to identify matters that are a good fit. The practice adopts a **fixed-fee approach**, distinguishing it from standard hourly-rate engagements and signalling a structural shift in how the firm prices AI-enabled work. Linklaters positions Applied Intelligence as a response to client demand for deeper, matter-specific technology integration rather than off-the-shelf legal tech deployments.
International · Thu, 7 May 2026
**Linklaters** has created a new internal team called **Applied Intelligence**, comprising lawyers and data scientists who will work together to co-design and deliver bespoke AI-enabled technology and legal solutions for clients facing complex, high-stakes challenges. The team is specifically designed for matters involving 'large and complex data sets', building customised AI workflows and tools that go beyond what off-the-shelf commercial products can deliver. **Managing Partner Paul Lewis** described Applied Intelligence as enabling the firm to meet growing client demand for 'ever more sophisticated solutions powered by AI'. Co-founder **Tom Quoroll** emphasised that the team has been built for 'collaboration and judgement' as much as technical capability. The move positions Linklaters as an early mover among Magic Circle firms in offering a genuinely integrated lawyer-technologist capability — rather than simply deploying third-party AI tools — and reflects a competitive market in which top-tier clients are increasingly demanding bespoke solutions that combine legal expertise with custom technology development. This story is reported here under the International slot as the best available cross-border/firm strategy story from today's corpus with direct relevance to London-based City firms.
AI & Law · Wed, 8 Apr 2026
Two distinct but connected AI-and-law developments surfaced on 7 April 2026. First, the **Stability AI** v **Getty Images** motion in California federal court (detailed in the Disputes story) raises a foundational question for legal practice: how courts will treat AI-generated outputs as evidence in IP litigation. When an AI model produces an image bearing a garbled version of a third party's watermark, the legal question is whether that output constitutes admissible evidence of copyright management information (**CMI**) removal under the **Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)** — or, in parallel UK proceedings, under the **Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA)**. The answer shapes how lawyers disclose, authenticate, and present AI-generated outputs in future disputes. Second, the **Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)** has reported a significant increase in fraud alerts involving scammers impersonating law firms in Q1 2026 compared with the same period last year. Named firms impersonated include **Skadden**, **Hogan Lovells**, **Sullivan & Cromwell**, **Linklaters**, **Travers Smith**, **Clifford Chance**, **Herbert Smith Freehills**, **Mayer Brown**, **White & Case**, and **Taylor Wessing**. The impersonation attacks — using lookalike email domains and fake firm identities — are believed to be AI-assisted, with generative AI enabling fraudsters to replicate firm communications at scale and with greater plausibility than manual methods. Taken together, these stories define the two-sided AI risk facing City firms in 2026: AI as a subject of litigation (training data and IP), and AI as an instrument of fraud targeting the legal sector.
AI & Law · Sun, 5 Apr 2026
**Macfarlanes**, the 150-year-old City law firm, has posted a **profit per equity partner (PEP)** — the standard measure of law firm profitability, calculated by dividing total partnership profit by the number of equity partners — of **£3.1 million**, a figure that places it ahead of several Magic Circle firms on this metric and significantly above the Silver Circle average. The firm's strategy is explicitly non-expansionist: unlike Magic Circle rivals pursuing global office networks, **Macfarlanes** has maintained a focused, London-centric practice with selective international capability. The profitability result reflects the commercial logic of restraint — a smaller equity partner base sharing a high-quality revenue stream generates superior per-partner returns compared with larger networks carrying the overhead of global offices. The broader context highlighted in the commentary around these results is the role of **AI investment** as a profitability accelerator. The UK legal market saw a record **£534 million** of private equity capital flow into law firms in the past year, with AI positioned as the central investment thesis — the argument being that AI tools reduce the cost of routine legal work, improving margins without requiring proportionate fee increases. For a focused firm like **Macfarlanes**, AI adoption at the practice level potentially amplifies the already-favourable economics of its lean equity structure. The results will sharpen debate about whether the global expansion model pursued by **Linklaters**, **Freshfields**, and other Magic Circle firms delivers superior returns relative to the focused mid-size City model — a strategic question with direct implications for how firms structure their AI investment and technology adoption programmes.