It Won’t Be Boring: 7 Predictions for the Legal Industry in 2026

Happy new year. I hope your 2026 is off to an excellent start.

Of the more than 20 years I’ve been writing about law and the legal profession, 2025 was one of the busiest. My two main beats are Big Law and the federal courts, especially the US Supreme Court, and both were extremely active last year—thanks in large part to actions taken by President Donald Trump and his administration, many of which generated litigation.

What does the new year have in store for lawyers and the legal world? Here are my predictions.

1. The Trump administration’s targeting of large law firms is (probably) over.

When Trump started issuing executive orders against law firms last March, I was shocked. As a journalist covering the business of law, I’m obsessed with Big Law. But I never imagined that law firms would make it onto the radar of the president, to the point where they would become his targets.

After nine firms reached swift settlements to avoid getting hit with executive orders, I expected the administration to start targeting—and cutting deals with—many other firms. But that hasn’t happened; instead, Trump has turned his attention to other things. My guess is he’s gotten what he wanted: He’s successfully intimidated Big Law into not taking on his administration in court.

2. Trump will lose the law firm executive-order cases in the DC Circuit.

Four firms—Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale—challenged the executive orders against them in court. All four firms prevailed, with judges from across the ideological spectrum—two Democratic appointees, two Republican appointees—holding the orders unconstitutional.

The administration appealed its defeats to the DC Circuit, where I predict it will lose yet again. Democratic appointees outnumber Republican ones on the court, 7–⁠4—but beyond that, even a Republican-appointed judge would have a hard time coming up with a convincing rationale for upholding the orders.

Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, is a conservative jurist. But as he wrote when invalidating the order against WilmerHale, “to rule otherwise would be unfaithful to the judgment and vision of the Founding Fathers!” (Exclamation point in the original.)

3. The Supreme Court will decline to take any of the executive-order cases.

If the Trump administration loses in the DC Circuit and appeals to the Supreme Court, I’m guessing the justices won’t take any of these cases. There won’t be a circuit split, the outcome is squarely controlled by existing constitutional law, and a majority of the justices will agree with the lower courts. And there’s no reason to antagonize Trump unnecessarily—especially if he’s done issuing such orders, making this issue irrelevant as a practical matter.

4. The Supreme Court will use its merits docket to start ruling against the Trump administration more.

On the Supreme Court’s emergency docket—or “interim docket,” to use Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s preferred term—the Trump administration has won almost all of its cases. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson complained in a dissent last August, it appears that on the interim docket, “this Administration always wins.”

A key feature to keep in mind about the interim docket, however, is that the Trump administration gets to pick the cases in which it seeks interim relief. Unsurprisingly, it picks cases where it views its chances of prevailing as strong, so a high win rate should be expected. (Note that the administration didn’t seek interim relief in any of the law firm executive-order cases.)

But now, one year into Trump’s second term, cases against the administration are coming (or coming back) to the Supreme Court as merits cases—and in a number of them, the administration could lose. Possible defeats for Trump could come in cases involving tariffs, birthright citizenship, and his attempt to remove Lisa Cook as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board. (As a technical matter, Trump v. Cook is before the court on the government’s application for interim relief—but the court has the benefit of full briefing and is holding oral argument, as it would for a merits case.)

5. No justices will retire in 2026.

Many conservative commentators are predicting (or hoping) that Justice Clarence Thomas or Justice Samuel Alito will step down, allowing Trump to appoint an equally conservative but much younger successor. But both justices remain healthy, active, and deeply engaged with their work.

Thomas, a staunch conservative and originalist, waited more than three decades for a court that thinks like him—and now he has it. At the peak of his influence, why would he want to leave?

And at ages 77 (for Thomas) and 75 (for Alito), they’re still shy of the ages that justices have retired at in recent years. Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy served until they were 83 and 82, respectively.

6. Kirkland & Ellis and Wachtell Lipton will be the first firms to break the $10 million mark in profits per equity partner.

Turning to Big Law, I’m expecting to see mixed results when The American Lawyer releases its 2025 financial reports for law firms. But last year was record-setting for M&A, especially deals involving public companies—and I’m expecting it will be record-setting for top M&A firms.

In 2024, the top two firms in profits per equity partner, Kirkland & Ellis and Wachtell Lipton, enjoyed profits per equity partner of $9.253 and $9.036 million, respectively. In 2025, Kirkland and Wachtell were #2 and #3 in the M&A league tables, guiding deals worth $743 billion and $621 billion, respectively—significantly higher than their 2024 totals of $427 billion and $228 billion. Given their dramatically higher deal flow in 2025, it would actually be surprising if Kirkland and Wachtell failed to surpass the $10 million mark in PPEP.

(The #1 firm in the 2025 league tables was Latham & Watkins. But historically it hasn’t been as profitable as Kirkland or Wachtell, with PPEP of $7.135 million in 2024.)

7. Wachtell will reclaim its #1 spot in PPEP from Kirkland.

Wachtell has been the #1 firm in profits per partner for 22 out of the past 25 years. In the 2025 rankings, based on 2024 financial performance, Kirkland edged out Wachtell—but in the 2026 rankings, based on 2025 financial performance, I expect Wachtell to retake its crown.

Yes, Kirkland advised on deals with a higher aggregate value than Wachtell did. But remember that profits per equity partner is a fraction—and Kirkland, with more than 500 equity partners, has a much larger denominator than Wachtell, with fewer than 100 equity partners.

Kirkland also went on a litigation hiring spree in 2025, adding more than 140 lateral hires to its litigation group. That could—and probably will, given Kirkland’s track record—end up being a winning business strategy over the long term.

But bringing in lateral partners, who often have to be lured away from their current firms with large guarantees, can be expensive in the short term. So I wouldn’t be surprised if all this hiring affects Kirkland’s PPEP for 2025, allowing Wachtell to pull ahead.

These are just some of my calls for 2026; I look forward to hearing yours.

I’m guessing that 2026 will be another jam-packed year for legal news, which leads me to one final prediction for the year ahead: It won’t be boring.

David Lat, a lawyer turned writer, publishes Original Jurisdiction. He founded Above the Law and Underneath Their Robes, and is author of the novel “Supreme Ambitions.”