Data shows in-house pay nears private practice

Junior women earn 76% less than men at UK Bar

75% of Australians think a degree just isn’t worth it

New Sydney data shows in-house salaries sit surprisingly close to private practice across most PQE levels, with only a brief $15k gap at 2–3 and 4–5 PQE. By senior associate, the difference all but disappears. Recruiters say juniors are jumping early for balance, but warn the real trade-off isn’t pay — it’s the private-practice training they miss. Full breakdown here.

A new UK Bar Council report shows junior female barristers earn just 76% of what junior men make, with median fees of £124k versus £162.8k. The gap persists across every PQE band and blows out to 28% for silks. Even in family law, where women are the majority, men out-earn them at every level: Legal Cheek

Accenture now calls its 800,000 employees “reinventors” as it restructures around AI and pushes clients to do the same. CEO Julie Sweet says those who can’t retrain may be asked to leave. Critics call the jargon pretentious and confusing: AFR

Maddocks has hired Lisa Quilty as special counsel in Canberra, adding a disputes veteran with more than 20 years’ experience across liability, workers’ comp, PI and complex investigations. Quilty joins from Mills Oakley and spent a decade at KWM, and is well known in ACT circles: Point Blank

AI: Australia will establish a national AI Safety Institute in early 2026 to independently test and assess advanced AI systems and strengthen domestic oversight. Modeled on the UK’s AI Safety Institute, AISI will provide technical evaluations, safety frameworks and international information-sharing as part of the national AI strategy. Businesses should expect more detailed technical guidance and closer regulatory scrutiny of AI deployments, including testing standards, error-detection, record-keeping and cyber-security requirements. Australian “safe AI” are norms now set to track leading overseas regimes: HSF Kramer

Contract: The NSW Supreme Court has confirmed that a lender must strictly comply with the formal requirements of a default notice before a guarantor’s liability is triggered. In Delany Advertising v Upper Hunter Solar, the lender tried to recover the shortfall under a director guarantee after selling the mortgaged land. The Court held that the guarantee could not be enforced until the lender complied with the notice provisions in the deed. Even where liability is otherwise clear, guarantee enforcement will fail if contractual notice steps aren’t followed.

Schemes: The Supreme Court of Victoria has issued new guidance on how to obtain approval for schemes of arrangement in the Commercial Court. The Notice sets out a streamlined process for securing first and second hearing dates and clarifies how the Court expects matters to be run alongside the harmonised national Practice Note SC CC9. Parties must now email Justice Matthews’ chambers before issuing an originating process to propose date windows, flag any hard deadlines, and indicate when supporting material will be ready. Chambers will then allocate both hearing dates and identify the presiding judge, with practitioners required to endorse the originating process accordingly when filing.

Three-quarters of Australians now think a degree just isn’t worth it. And that’s so fair when you consider the data - degrees cost 20–50% more than in 2021, average HELP debt is up 225%, grad salaries in law, finance and medicine have flatlined, and 1 in 3 grads still can’t land a job six months out. Add AI anxiety and ghost-town campuses where students juggle 20-hour work weeks instead of a social life, and the benefits of uni are quickly dwindling: AFR

Canberra is urging AI developers to start labelling and watermarking AI generated content, as deepfakes spread through schools and public life. Google already watermarks content even though it isn’t a legal requirement yet. Senator David Pocock is pushing even harder, introducing a bill to ban AI-altered faces and voices without consent: ABC News

Capricorn Metals: is fuelling M&A chatter after sounding out Genesis Minerals about a potential gold merger, with talk of an $8bn–$10bn sector tie-up brewing. Both stocks have surged on record gold prices, and a deal would boost scale and index appeal. Alternatives include OceanaGold, while big hitters like Harmony and Agnico Eagle are also scanning Aussie gold targets: The Australian

Blackstone: is in exclusive talks to pump billions into Firmus Technologies, the AI data-centre upstart that just hit a $6bn valuation. The asset-backed debt package could top 10bn. The move deepens Blackstone’s data-centre footprint after its $24bn AirTrunk deal: AFR

Silver and copper ripped to fresh records in a chaotic Black Friday session after a CME outage sent markets haywire. Silver spiked 6% to $56.50/oz, now up 90% YTD, as traders pile into the debasement trade and supply stays tight. Copper climbed past $11.2k/ton on shrinking inventories: Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs says nearly 70% of global investors expect gold to keep climbing in 2026, with over a third tipping it to crack $5k/oz. Central banks are still buying aggressively, pushing gold’s 61% YTD rally into a multi-year bull run. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are just as bullish: Mining.com

The big four banks have quietly lifted their game, with misconduct breaches falling year-on-year even as more than 500 bankers were sacked in 2025. CBA still logged 1,959 cases, mostly office attendance slip-ups, while NAB flagged 7,346 breaches and Westpac axed 134 staff. ANZ docked exec bonuses after its record $240m fine: AFR

ANZ is swinging the axe again, with ESG and climate roles on the chopping block as Nuno Matos’ restructure rolls on. The bank’s top climate lead is out in two weeks, with his role folded and not guaranteed a replacement. It’s part of Matos’ plan to cut 3,500 roles, consolidate comms, and refocus on non-financial risk as APRA pressure mounts: Capital Brief

Treasury Wine Estates is taking a hit, booking a $687.4m goodwill write-down in the Americas as US wine trends soften. Despite some brands outperforming, TWE’s lower long-term growth assumptions have wiped out its impairment buffer. The final number lands in the 2026 interim results, with new CEO Sam Fischer fronting investors next month as the stock sits 48% down this year: Reuters

Samty Holdings has swooped on UniLodge in a $600m+ deal, giving the Japanese giant a national footprint across 45,000 student beds. Despite softer international enrolments, housing shortages are propping up demand and valuations, with UniLodge reportedly selling at ~16x earnings: The Australian

A new crop of social and dating startups is pulling in fresh VC cash, with IRL-first platforms, Gen Z apps and AI-powered networking tools all getting funded. Investors are betting big on fixing loneliness, dating fatigue and stale social feeds, and you can read the winning pitch decks here. Business Insider

Virgin Australia has cut a deal with OpenAI, becoming the first Aussie airline on ChatGPT, with flight options soon surfacing directly inside the chatbot. Users will be able to describe a trip and get real-time Virgin routes back, as the airline explores deeper app integrations. Bookings aren’t live yet, but Virgin’s betting big on AI-driven travel planning: AFR