What a Year! The Legal Industry Year in Review.

There's no question that 2023 has been an eventful year, filled with news about law firm mergers, AI and the impact of war. In case you missed any of our coverage, here are some highlights.

I'm Lisa Shuchman, Executive Editor of Law.com International, bringing you this week's edition of The Global Lawyer.

It’s been quite a year. Two big wars are raging; geopolitical tensions continue; the use—and misuse—of technology has increased; economic uncertainty persists; and the list goes on. The legal industry, which tends to reflect what is happening in the world, has been affected by all of this over the past 12 months.

But in case you missed any of our coverage this year, we’re here to bring you some Law.com International stories that not only highlight major developments but also offer deeper insight into what’s been happening in the legal world.

The big legal story of the year, of course, is the impending merger of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. Back in January, Shearman was talking to Hogan Lovells—a deal that died. But in this story about the relationship between lockstep and mergers, Law.com International gets at one of the core issues that has haunted Big Law, and then revisits it when Shearman and A&O decide they will merge.

We also published many stories that analyzed the A&O-Shearman merger—what drove it, the reaction to it from different parts of the world, and whether we will see more such mergers in the coming years. Just last week, we brought you a story detailing how the merger was able to come about in part because Shearman convinced partners it had to make big adjustments to its pension plan. Here are some of the other stories we’ve published about the merger, which is expected to be completed in the spring.

The Israel-Gaza war is not just a legal story. But as we saw last year when Russia invaded Ukraine, the legal community is a microcosm of society and it has not been able to escape the impact of war. Here is some of our coverage, focusing on the impact the Israel-Gaza war has had on the legal industry around the world:

One of the unanticipated stories of the year, but one that is directly tied to the tensions between China and the West and to China’s heightened national security focus and regulatory climate, was the move by Dentons to break from its combination with the Chinese firm Dacheng...

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