Happy Friday!

Your firms will justify their next increase with the market average. In 2025 that average was 5.6%. Almost nobody paid 5.6%.

Jennifer McIver of Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions took the averages apart for us on the blog.

Where the rate pressure actually landed:

• Manufacturing absorbed 12.2%, more than double the cross-industry average
• Consumer services took 11.5%, on top of 16.1% the year before
• Associate rates outpaced partner rates, up 18.9% on manufacturing matters
• Health care and tech/telecom are tracking 11.1% and 9.5% so far in 2026

It runs the other way too. Associate rates at Am Law 151-200 firms are down 10.2% year to date.

An increase is a position, not a market fact, and knowing your industry's real number is what makes it negotiable.

Read the analysis before your renewal conversations start.

Want the full benchmark report behind it? Legal.io members save 20% on the 2025 Real Rate Report.

— Pieter Gunst

CEO & Co-Founder, Legal.io

Explore Legal.io Enterprise

Turn the numbers above into your numbers:

• See which panel firms are priced above market, and worth a renegotiation
• Compare your legal budget against companies your size
• Research 9,000+ firms, then build and manage your panel in one place

Explore the platform, free for the Legal.io community.

📊 Data-Driven Legal

$20M

Seed round for Twin1, co-led by Bessemer, where Lewis Liu and two former Eigen colleagues are building digital twins for lawyers.

$1T

Forecast global AI investment for 2026, per Goldman Sachs, with $581 billion of it in the US.

30 days

How long Anthropic keeps user data on its Mythos-class models, while OpenAI pitches enterprise customers zero retention.

📰 Industry Snapshot

Claude’s Watermarks and their Legal Sector Impact

Every AI-drafted clause now carries a mark that outlives the document it was written in. Artificial Lawyer works through what that means for templates, client AI bans, and judges.

Elevate acquires US legal work-management platform start-up Lupl

The matter management platform, backed by CMS, Cooley, and Rajah & Tann Asia, joins Elevate's software business. Lupl was built to run on top of Claude, Harvey, and Copilot rather than compete with them.

AI Is Rewiring M&A Practice But Judgment Still Sets the Deal’s Direction 

The article walks through what AI has taken over at each level of a deal team, junior associate to partner. Then it gets specific about what can't be handed over.

An ex-Legora exec launches a fixed-fee firm with a16z money 

Athena pairs Am Law 50 partners with AI workflows and agrees scope, timetable, and fee before any work starts. No hourly rates at all.

Steno Appoints Court Reporting Veteran Jon Hefler as Vice President of Growth 

Hefler arrives from Lexitas, where he was chief strategy officer, to push Steno deeper into Am Law 200 firms and Fortune 500 legal departments. The hire follows a $49M Series C.

More from Legal.io

Join our community of 150K+ in-house legal professionals or explore our enterprise platform where you can hire top talent, benchmark outside counsel rates, manage your panel, and more.

• 🚀 Hire Talent - Find the best fit for any legal role.

• 💼 Jobs - Over 7,000 roles live right now.

• 💰 Salaries - Benchmark compensation for legal roles.