Good morning. Major law firms with Russia offices are racing to respond to a web of sanctions that is putting some clients off limits. Cravath jumped to the top for pay for midlevel and senior associates. Plus, there’s a new entry in the list of patent disputes over COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, Sarah Palin’s filed her arguments for a new trial — and a new judge; and Cartier is suing rival Tiffany & Co over alleged trade secret theft. We’re buckled in for this week. Let’s go!
Our colleague Karen Sloan, who reports on law firms, law schools and the business of law, is cowriting The Daily Docket while Diana Novak Jones is on parental leave. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina, REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
Representing clients in Russia's finance and energy sectors has traditionally been lucrative business for international law firms, but that financial pipeline may dry up as countries impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Two U.S. law firms — Sidley Austin and Venable — last week terminated registrations to lobby in Washington for sanctioned financial institutions VTB Bank and Sberbank, respectively, and White & Case said it is "taking steps to exit some representations,” reports Jacqueline Thomsen.
Western firms with lawyers in Russia say they are reviewing their client rosters in light of the sanctions, which could make representing certain entities unlawful. At least 20 international law firms have offices in Moscow, and the list of firms that have worked for sanctioned entities in the past includes Akin Gump, Allen & Overy, Baker McKenzie, Cleary Gottlieb, Debevoise, Dentons, Freshfields, Hogan Lovells, Latham & Watkins and Skadden. It's unclear how much business law firms will lose from severing ties with prohibited clients, and those firms may find a silver lining in advising other clients on navigating the sanctions.
But firms don’t seem eager to discuss their Russia dilemma. Most of those contacted by Reuters did not respond to queries about their Russian clients, or declined to talk. But one lawyer with an international law firm who spoke on condition of anonymity warned that this round of sanctions against Russia will cut deeper than any predecessors. “It’ll be more complicated this time,” the lawyer said.
The associate salary war has escalated yet again, this time with Cravath boosting senior associate pay to as high as $415,000. That’s above the scale set last week by Davis Polk, which tops out at $396,500. Busy firms have been jockeying to recruit and retain associates for 18 months, betting on pay raises and bonuses to keep lawyers happy. Corporate associates are in particularly high demand, Sara Merken reports.
Cravath unveiled its new associate pay scale on Monday, less than a week after Davis Polk left competitor firms scrambling to match its salary increases. Cravath’s salaries for associates in their first to third years match those at Davis Polk at $215,000 to $250,000. But its associates will earn more starting in their fourth year, eventually bringing in $18,500 more than their counterparts adhering to the Davis Polk scale. Cravath said the new base pay will be retroactive to Jan. 1
- Democrats are gearing up to spend big on lawyers, advertising, and other protect-the-vote efforts in the runup to the 2022 midterm elections. The Democratic National Committee took in $157 million last year — the most for a year without a presidential election — and added $10 million more in January. (Reuters)
- Fried Frank brought on at least 35 attorneys and business professionals from Cadwalader’s financial services practice. The group includes New York-based partners Ray Shirazi, Steven Lofchie, Dorothy Mehta and Nihal Patel, as well as Washington D.C.-based partner Jason Schwartz. (Reuters)
- Chevron tapped Paul Weiss to lead its $3.15 billion acquisition of Renewable Energy Group, which hired Latham & Watkins to represent it in the deal. (Reuters)
- A Massachusetts judge can be prosecuted for allegedly blocking a federal immigration arrest of a defendant in her courtroom, the 1st Circuit said. Lawyers for Newton District Court Judge Shelley Joseph had argued that she enjoyed immunity as a sitting judge for actions she took within her official capacity. (Reuters)
- Simpson Thacher represented TD Bank on its $13.4 billion acquisition of First Horizon, which tapped Sullivan & Cromwell as its legal advisor. (Reuters)
REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration
That’s the number of confidential attorney discipline case records the California Bar said appeared on a public website last week in what it described as a “hack” of its case database. The case records have been removed, and the Bar has launched an investigation into how the data ended up on Judyrecords.com, a free database that purports to include more than 630 million court cases. But a site administrator said the data was pulled directly from the California Bar’s website. Read more about the breach.
Video: 'Nobody has a clue': Lawyers on the many unknowns surrounding NFTs
Lawyers discuss significant cases involving the digital assets known as Non-Fungible Tokens, which have given rise to so many novel legal issues that, as one attorney said, "we're making it up as we go." Watch the video.
"Our message to them is not, 'Register your product and we'll just ignore the billions you have under management in this crypto lending product and your violations of the securities laws.'"
—Gurbir Grewal, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement director, telling Reuters that the agency will not offer amnesty to cryptocurrency companies that self-report violations of securities laws, although they may face smaller penalties. Many in the industry had hoped the SEC would start a self-reporting amnesty. Read more observations from Grewal.
- U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff is expected to issue a written opinion explaining why he announced his plan to dismiss Sarah Palin’s defamation case against The New York Times while jurors were deliberating. Jurors said they saw news of Rakoff’s plan but that it did not affect their consideration of her lawsuit. The jury ruled for the Times. Palin had claimed the Times defamed her over a 2017 editorial that incorrectly linked the former Alaska governor and Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate to a mass shooting six years earlier. Palin’s lawyers on Monday asked for a new trial and argued Rakoff should be disqualified.
- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in appeals over whether doctors charged with illegally distributing prescription drugs can defend themselves by arguing that they acted in good faith. Xiulu Ruan and Shakeel Kahn were convicted of prescribing opioids in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act and sentenced to 21 and 25 years in prison, respectively. Lawrence Robbins of Robbins Russell will argue for Ruan, and Chicago lawyer Beau Brindley will argue for Kahn. Eric Feigin, deputy U.S. solicitor, will advocate for the government.
- Former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Leissner is expected to resume testifying in the trial of his former colleague, Roger Ng, who was charged in Brooklyn federal court with helping to loot millions of dollars from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund. The prosecution hit a snag when the U.S. Justice Department disclosed that it had not turned over some 15,000 pages to Ng’s defense concerning Leissner. Ng has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to launder money and to violating an anti-bribery law.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
- A lawsuit filed by Arbutus Biopharma against Moderna is the latest in a small but growing list of patent disputes over COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The law firms Williams & Connolly, Durie Tangri and Shaw Keller represent Arbutus in the new case in Delaware federal court. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said patents on the breakthrough gene-editing technology known as CRISPR belong to Harvard and MIT. The decision, which can be appealed to the Federal Circuit, is a defeat for the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna and Nobel Prize-winning researcher Emmanuelle Charpentier. (Reuters)
- Cartier, represented by Fisher & Phillips, accused rival Tiffany & Co of stealing trade secrets concerning its high-end jewelry from an employee it hired in December. The complaint was filed in New York state court. (Reuters)
- Drugmaker Viatris, formerly known as Mylan, will pay $264 million to resolve a class action in Kansas federal court alleging it engaged in a scheme to delay generic competition to its EpiPen allergy treatment. Lawyers from Hogan Lovells represented Mylan, which did not admit liability. The plaintiffs’ team includes attorneys from Sharp Law, Keller Rohrback and Robbins Geller. They plan to seek up to a third of the settlement for fees, or about $87.9 million. (Reuters)
- The conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the federal government's authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants during oral arguments in a case centering on the Clean Air Act. Republican-led states and coal companies challenged the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and gas-fired power plants, in a closely watched case that could undermine President Joe Biden's plans to tackle climate change. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a dispute over the legality of decades-old federal requirements that give Native American families priority to adopt Native American children. A group of non-Native adoptive families and the state of Texas have challenged several key parts of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. The Biden administration and several Native American tribes are defending the law. (Reuters)
- The 9th Circuit rejected antitrust claims brought against Facebook owner Meta Platforms by three application developers that argued the technology company unfairly cut them off from receiving certain social data. The appeals court said the developers’ claims against Facebook were filed out of time and also that the plaintiffs had failed to show how they were harmed by alleged anticompetitive conduct.
- Arnold & Porter hired former lead administrative patent judge Jessica Kaiser of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a partner in the firm’s Denver office. (Reuters)
- White & Case brought on Vincenzo Lucibello to serve as co-head of the firm's U.S. private credit and direct lending group. Lucibello joins the New York-founded firm as a partner from Proskauer Rose in Boston. (Reuters)
- Morgan Lewis added partner Barron Avery in Washington, D.C., as leader of the firm’s government contracts practice. He arrives from BakerHostetler, where he led the government contracts practice and the aerospace and defense industry team. (Morgan Lewis)
- Hogan Lovells hired corporate and finance partner Adrienne Ellman in the firm’s New York office. She arrives from Foley Hoag, where she co-chaired the mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions group. (Hogan Lovells)
- Perkins Coie said Diane Johnsen joined the firm’s litigation and appellate practice. She earlier spent 14 years as a judge on the Arizona State Court of Appeals. (Perkins Coie)
- Schulte Roth & Zabel said Alexander Kim joined the firm's New York office as a partner and head of the intellectual property, sourcing and technology group. Kim arrives from Cahill Gordon. (Schulte Roth)
- Goodwin Procter has added four partners across a variety of offices and practices. Private equity partner Barbara Shander joined the Philadelphia office from WCG Clinical. Life sciences partner Scott Bluni joined from IP firm Kacvinsky Daisak Bluni and is based in Boston. Capital markets partner Radoslaw Michalak joined from Davis Polk in New York. And ERISA partner David McFarlane joined the Los Angeles office from Crowell & Moring.
Appellate lawyers should develop a single sentence that might linger in the minds of panel judges weighing an oral argument as they leave the bench, writes Bennett Evan Cooper of Dickinson Wright. But try to avoid the cute and snarky, the author writes. Learn more about crafting that one sentence that is a “prism that focuses all of the rays of light on your many arguments.”
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