Milbank: Opens Chicago Office, Extends Pay Scale

Milbank’s banner year rolls on. The firm rewrote Biglaw’s salary scale in June, stacked special summer bonuses on top , and waved its incoming class in early because business was too good to wait. The latest chapter in Milbank’s 2026 is its arrival in Chicago. The firm announced Monday that it’s opening an office in Chicago, a new market for a firm that sets the going rate everywhere that counts… even most of Biglaw hasn’t actually signed onto yet. The promised wave of matches has been more of a trickle . Plenty of firms, many of Chicago’s homegrown giants among them, still haven’t put the new numbers in writing. Everyone assumes they will… but so far, they haven’t announced a thing. Which makes Milbank’s timing pointed. It’s arriving as the highest bidder in a town where the locals — Kirkland, Sidley, Mayer Brown, Winston & Strawn, Jenner — have so far stayed quiet on the new scale. A price-setting competitor recruiting on your home turf tends to concentrate the mind on comp. New executive research from Ari Kaplan explores how law firm leaders are responding to changing client expectations, evolving economics, talent transformation, and AI governance.