Good morning. A new report has revealed that more money isn’t the key to keeping associate attorneys at law firms. Plus, Willkie Farr and Wilson Sonsini had starring roles in a blockbuster videogame company tie-up, and Medtronic loses the chance to dodge a $112 million verdict at the Supreme Court. Let’s get this show on the road!
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Law firms are spending more than ever to recruit and retain associates, but record turnover persists, according to a new report from the Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law’s Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession.
The report, which includes data from 171 U.S.-based law firms, including many of the country’s most profitable, found that associate compensation in November was up 11% over the previous 12-month period. Despite that, nearly a quarter of associates had left their firms in the past year, our colleague Karen Sloan writes.
The report dubbed the 25% of law firms with the highest turnover rates as "Go" firms, and the 25% of law firms that had the lowest turnover "Stay" firms.
- An Illinois attorney review board recommended disbarring former Cook County, Illinois judge Jessica Arong O’Brien after she was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison for her role in a $1.4 million mortgage fraud scheme. (Reuters)
- Longtime Mayer Brown class action appellate partner Donald Falk has moved to the conservative litigation boutique Schaerr Jaffe, home to a host of former Big Law veterans. (Reuters)
- Willkie Farr is steering "Grand Theft Auto" maker Take-Two Interactive Software's $11.04 billion acquisition of "FarmVille" creator Zynga, which has tapped Wilson Sonsini for help on the deal. (Reuters)
- Los Angeles-based midsize law firm Michelman & Robinson has opened its first Texas office, absorbing the data privacy and cybersecurity-focused firm Yarbrough Blackstone in Dallas. (Reuters)
That’s how many financial aid recipients could have been overcharged for tuition and room and board at 16 of the country’s top colleges, according to a new lawsuit that alleges the schools conspired to limit the aid to students. The lawsuit, filed in Illinois federal court, accuses schools such as Northwestern, Yale and Columbia of running a “cartel” that colluded to keep financial aid limited. Reuters’ Luc Cohen has more on the lawsuit.
A divided appellate panel says Boeing can’t enforce a clause that would have sent a shareholder derivative suit to Chancery Court because Chancery doesn’t have jurisdiction over Exchange Act claims. In dissent, Judge Frank Easterbrook said that’s not true in a derivative suit claiming directors breached their duties. Stanford securities law professor Joseph Grundfest told Alison Frankel that he agrees with Easterbrook, insisting that the decision “begs for en banc reversal.”
"While H&R Block may not like that it has to compete with a truly free income tax preparation service offered by an established business like [Block’s] Cash App, its appropriate recourse is to take on Cash App in the marketplace, not to fabricate trademark claims that are implausible on their face."
—Block Inc, the financial services company formerly known as Square, which asked a Missouri federal judge to toss a trademark infringement suit filed by H&R Block over the companies’ similar names. Customers won’t be confused between the two, Block said. Reuters’ Blake Brittain has more.
- Lawyers for Donald Trump will ask a judge to dismiss niece Mary Trump's lawsuit accusing the former U.S. president of squeezing her out of a multimillion-dollar inheritance through a 2001 settlement related to the estate of Donald Trump's father Fred Trump. Other defendants are Donald Trump's sister Maryanne Trump Barry and the estate of his late brother Robert Trump. Lawyers from Kaplan Hecker represent Mary, and the firm Kiley, Kiley & Kiley represents Donald. Maryanne is represented by Greenfield Stein & Senior. The hearing will be held remotely before Justice Robert Reed of the New York state court in Manhattan.
- U.S. Justice Department lawyer Matt Olsen, head of the national security division, will testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing that will examine domestic terrorism one year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Olsen, formerly chief security officer at Uber and Obama-era general counsel to the National Security Agency, is scheduled to appear with Jill Sanborn, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch. Watch the hearing on the committee’s website here.
- A 9th Circuit panel will hear an appeal by Marcus Gray, a Christian rapper also known as Flame, of a Los Angeles federal judge's decision overturning his $2.8 million copyright win against Katy Perry. A jury found in 2019 that Perry's hit "Dark Horse" infringed copyrights in his song "Joyful Noise," but U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder ruled in 2020 that the parts of the song Perry allegedly copied weren't eligible for copyright protection. Michael Kahn of Capes Sokol will argue for Gray, and Vincent Chieffo of Greenberg Traurig represents Perry. Christine Lepera of Mitchell Silberberg will argue for Perry's label Capitol Records.
- U.S. District Judge John Kness in Chicago will hear arguments over whether global law firm Dentons can withdraw as counsel to a Japanese pachinko billionaire sued for allegedly stiffing another law firm, Bartlit Beck, on a $50 million legal fee. The billionaire, Kazuo Okada, has paid just under $400,000 on the bill, and Bartlit Beck has accused Okada of agreeing to shed the Dentons attorneys to delay the firm’s recovery further.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- Insurance company Chubb is not required to provide coverage and defend Rite Aid in lawsuits accusing the pharmacy chain operator of fueling the opioid epidemic, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled. O’Melveny’s Jonathan Hacker argued for Chubb, and Gerald Konkel of Morgan Lewis represented Rite Aid. (Reuters)
- Medtronic is stuck with a $112 million verdict after the Supreme Court rejected its request to review the case, which was brought by a surgeon who accused the medical-device maker of breaking an agreement to use his patented inventions and failing to pay royalties. Medtronic’s attorney, Paul Clement of Kirkland & Ellis, had argued the high court needed to weigh in because lower courts are divided on how to determine when a patent law issue requires a case to go to federal court. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case examining a recent increase in fees that Chapter 11 debtors are required to pay the federal government. The underlying lawsuit, which challenges the law increasing the fees as unconstitutional, was brought by Alfred Siegel, the trustee who oversaw Circuit City’s liquidation process. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court will review a Washington state law extending workers' compensation benefits to employees at a U.S. Department of Energy site who were exposed to toxic fumes and radioactive waste. The Justice Department said the 9th Circuit’s ruling, if left in place, would embolden other states to pass similar laws. (Reuters)
- Robinhood’s lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth and Cravath want a Miami judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the retail brokerage engaged in fraud and market manipulation when it restricted trading in several "meme stocks" last year. (Reuters)
- Wilson Sonsini hired Maneesha Mithal, a former leader of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's privacy and identity protection unit, as a partner in Washington, D.C. Mithal will focus on privacy and cybersecurity issues. (Reuters)
- Baker Botts brought on corporate partner David Marshall in London from Norton Rose Fulbright. (Reuters)
- Willkie Farr added Melanie James and Tim Baumgartner as insurance transactional and regulatory partners. They arrived from DLA Piper, where James served as global co-chair of the insurance sector. (Reuters)
- Gibson Dunn said Ron Hauben, former Ernst & Young general counsel, has joined the firm’s New York office as senior counsel. (Reuters)
- King & Spalding has brought on Tamra Moore as a healthcare partner based in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. Moore formerly was a U.S. Justice Department lawyer, serving as a senior counsel in the civil division’s federal programs branch. She arrives at the firm from Northrop Grumman, where she managed litigation and other disputes. (King & Spalding)
- McGuireWoods said Jack White has joined the firm in its Tysons Corner, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., offices as a white-collar partner. A former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito Jr, White earlier was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis. (McGuireWoods)
The U.S. Supreme Court term could bring a big shift in administrative law if the justices abandon or curtail their framework for assessing when courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute, write Shay Dvoretzky and Emily Kennedy of Skadden Arps. The case American Hospital Association v. Becerra, confronting certain cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates, gives the court its latest chance to confront Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel. Many justices have doubts or criticisms of Chevron deference, the authors write, but it’s not clear the court has enough votes to abandon the 1984 decision. Read more about key arbitration disputes and administrative cases that the justices are weighing.
Correction: A photo that ran in The Daily Docket on Monday under “Number of the Day” incorrectly showed an opioids bottle for an article about executive compensation at Apple.
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