Female partner numbers are creeping up across the Big 8. Ashurst Perkins Coie (45.9%) and HSF Kramer (42.9%) top the table, while Clayton Utz made the biggest leap, from 30.8% to 35% in a year. Still, nobody touches Lander & Rogers: 52% of its 122 partners are women, the only large Aussie firm to hold gender parity since 2023. See the full breakdown here: Point Blank

⚖️ Privilege: NSW Supreme Court has clarified when sharing legal advice with a non-lawyer will waive privilege. In Perpetual Corporate Trust v Maneva, a guarantor forwarded her solicitor's advice to a ‘trusted adviser' who was funding her legal fees. He described her as a good friend in some texts, then as ‘repulsive' and claimed he'd been ‘hustled' into paying. Despite that mess, Sirtes J found privilege wasn't waived, since the pair shared a genuine common interest in the outcome of related litigation — akin to a litigation funder relationship. Most of the other disputed material lost its privilege claim regardless, with the party asserting it unable to point to any evidence that the documents were created for a dominant legal purpose: NSW Supreme Court

⚖️ Employment/Contract: Federal Court has ordered failed spaceport venture Equatorial Launch Australia to pay former CEO Carley Scott $2.4m, even though the company is now in liquidation. Scott's commitment amount contract entitled her to $5m in convertible notes, on top of her salary. Justice Michael Dowling found she was owed $3m of that entitlement, less amounts already paid, plus a further $17k for unpaid phone and travel expenses. ELA argued a term should be implied allowing it to strip Scott's entitlement for alleged misconduct, but the Court refused. Summary termination a week before her entitlement vested could have cost Scott almost $5m — an outcome the Court found neither reasonable nor equitable: Lawyerly

⚖️ Disputes: Australia is a breeding ground for copycat class actions. Claims that gain traction in the US, UK and Europe are being used as templates locally. The total settlement value of class actions reached US$79bn in the US alone in 2025. For example, Maurice Blackburn has modelled a claim on US, UK and Canadian proceedings, while Shine Lawyers is exploring an Australian claim off the back of a US tech ruling. Australia's low bar for filing, with no certification step required, makes it an easy landing spot for these 'copycat' claims. Consumer, product and employment claims are leading the charge, with privacy, data, cyber and climate change tipped as next: Corrs Chambers Westgarth

Albanese is rolling out a new Office of AI to fast-track approvals for datacentres and wrangle AI's economic, social, security and environmental fallout under one roof — the first country to try it. He wants a single national standards framework and clear expectations for how Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft and Google earn their “social licence”. He says AI has been handled issue by issue, but just like civil aviation in the 1920s, it needs a co-ordinated approach: The Guardian, AFR

Turns out being a US-based ASX boss pays. Chris Hulls (Life360) is now the highest paid CEO on the ASX, clearing $47.7m, trailed by ResMed's Mick Farrell and News Corp's Robert Thomson, both over $30m. Meanwhile Aussie-based ASX 100 CEOs are stuck on a median $1.83m, less than the $1.95m median in 2012: AFR

🤖 The AI IPOs keep on coming. DeepSeek is prepping for a mainland IPO, eyeing a filing as early as this year and a 2027 debut. The Hangzhou AI company is also chasing fresh private funding at a pre-money valuation above 480bn yuan: Bloomberg

🚗 Delivery Hero confirmed advanced takeover talks with Uber, likely to value the Berlin group well above its €36 share price and €11.2bn market cap. It's Uber's second crack, after a €38 offer in May got knocked back: Reuters

⚡ TPG's Asia-focused fund has struck a deal to buy energy reseller Zembl for around $250m, beating out underbidder Adamantem Capital. The Sydney business, which helps clients like Harvey Norman shop for better energy rates, is forecast to hit $18m EBITDA this year: AFR