Good morning. A new report sheds light on the “volatile and fast-moving” market for new lateral hires at law firms. How long will it last? Plus, a Massachusetts judge handed a win to Robinhood in declaring the state’s investment advice rule invalid; Grubhub and competitors must face diners’ antitrust claims over menu prices; and Infowars’ Alex Jones was hit with a $25,000 daily sanction for his refusal to sit for a deposition in a Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has a full slate today, and indicted ex-Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann is due in court for a key hearing. Wow, it’s already Thursday. Let’s keep it going.
Our colleague Nimitt Dixit is co-writing The Daily Docket while Diana Novak Jones is on parental leave. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
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Lateral moves among law firm partners increased nearly 43% last year over 2020, and the number of associates switching firms was up 149% year-over-year, according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP).
The combined 111% annual increase in lateral moves was higher than any time in the two decades NALP has been gathering that data, Karen Sloan reports. NALP found that nearly 7,700 attorneys switched law firms in 2021 compared to 4,500 in 2020 — a year in which lateral hiring declined 30%, largely due to the pandemic.
“Lateral lawyer hiring at this level is likely unsustainable over time, and I expect the lateral market to cool a bit in 2022, or at least level off, but for now it remains a volatile and fast-moving market,” NALP executive director James Leipold said. Legal recruiter Kate Reder Sheikh at Major, Lindsey & Africa called 2021’s lateral landscape “unprecedented,” but added that lateral hiring has already pulled back to more traditional levels in 2022.
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Morrison & Foerster will counsel Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office on Western sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion and help engage with U.S. officials on policy matters, partner John Smith said in a filing with the U.S. Justice Department. Ukraine's government has hired at least two other U.S. law firms following the Russian invasion. (Reuters)
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Greenberg Traurig will host lawyers from Ukrainian law firm Avellum in some of its European offices and signaled plans to deepen its business in Ukraine as the country rebuilds. The 90-employee Avellum closed its physical office in Kyiv last month after Russia's invasion. (Reuters)
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A new lawsuit from the ACLU and NAACP challenges the South Carolina judiciary's ban on the "scraping" of data from publicly accessible online repositories of filings in the state's courts. The complaint in federal court argued the ban had impaired the groups’ ability to help tenants facing eviction by timely identifying them and providing resources and affordable housing opportunities. (Reuters)
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U.S. lobbying heavyweight Brownstein Hyatt has withdrawn its representation of the Republican National Committee in its legal challenge against the congressional House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Partner Christopher Murray has taken leave from Brownstein and will continue representing the RNC at Arizona-based Statecraft. (Reuters)
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The SEC’s new draft rule to increase SPAC disclosures “would represent a sea change,” Mayer Brown capital markets partner John Ablan said, pushing SPAC requirements closer to those for traditional IPOs . While improving disclosures “might not necessarily spell the death of SPACs,” New York University law professor Michael Ohlrogge said, he hopes the move will push them to evolve into a more cost-effective structure. (Reuters)
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The once high-flying securities trader Guy Gentile has been entangled with the government for a lot longer than he’d like. In 2012, facing arrest, he agreed to cooperate with securities fraud investigators. Then he got indicted and charged by the SEC with participating in a pump-and-dump scheme. By the time he got those cases dismissed, he was under investigation for soliciting U.S. day traders to trade through his Bahamian brokerage to avoid U.S. restrictions. Alison Frankel reports on Gentile’s attempt to end the SEC’s latest case with a novel contempt accusation against the government — and why his arguments fell short this week.
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"The so-called offer is a transparent and desperate attempt by Alex Jones to escape a public reckoning under oath."
—Families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting this week turned down a settlement offer from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to resolve a defamation lawsuit by agreeing to pay $120,000 to each of the plaintiffs. Jones, founder of the far-right website Infowars, has claimed the shooting that killed 26 people, most of them children, was a hoax. The lawyers in the case were in court on Wednesday in an ongoing fight to force Jones to sit for a deposition. A judge declared Jones in contempt and fined him $25,000 daily until he sits for a deposition.
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The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will meet in New Orleans to hear motions to consolidate or coordinate pretrial proceedings in product liability cases over Atrium Medical’s ProLite and ProLoop hernia mesh products, Procter & Gamble’s spray-on deodorants, and Abbott Laboratories’ preterm infant nutrition formulas. The court will also consider Columbia Riverkeeper’s bid to create an MDL for two cases accusing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of violating the Clean Water Act.
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Defense lawyers for indicted former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann are due to appear in Washington, D.C., federal court before U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper. Sussmann, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, has pleaded not guilty to lying to the FBI. The charge was brought by U.S. special counsel John Durham’s team investigating the origins of the FBI probe of potential ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham want prosecutors to divulge more information underlying the false statement charge against him.
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U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, federal court will weigh preliminary approval of a $90 million Facebook privacy settlement. Facebook’s lawyers at Cooley and Mayer Brown agreed in February to settle the decade-old privacy lawsuit accusing the company of tracking users' internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. Plaintiffs’ firms DiCello Levitt Gutzler, Grygiel Law and Simmons Hanly Conroy said they’d seek up to $26.1 million in legal fees as part of the settlement.
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Lawyers for Harvard University professor Charles Lieber will urge a Boston federal judge to overturn a jury verdict finding him guilty of lying about his ties to a China-run recruitment program in a closely watched case stemming from a crackdown on Chinese influence within U.S. research. Marc Mukasey is defending Lieber, whose case is before U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel. Lieber, former chairman of Harvard's chemistry department, was found guilty of making false statements to authorities, filing false tax returns and failing to report a Chinese bank account.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Welcome back to the Penalty Box, where The Daily Docket highlights new and notable attorney and judicial discipline orders, hearings, articles and more. We’re looking out for cases and issues of importance, so please do share any observations with us. -
Former Hunton & Williams partner Robert Schulman, convicted of securities fraud in 2017, has not demonstrated his "fitness" to resume practicing law in the District of Columbia, a Washington, D.C., attorney ethics panel said in a recent report. The hearing committee of the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility said Schulman failed to show "that he recognizes the seriousness of his conduct." The D.C. bar’s disciplinary office has backed Schulman’s reinstatement bid. The committee’s recommendation is subject to further review.
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Minnesota lawyer Erick Kaardal lost his bid in the D.C. Circuit to block an attorney ethics inquiry spurred by a federal judge who quickly dismissed his "baseless" and "sweeping" lawsuit challenging the 2020 election. The appeals court said Kaardal of Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson acted too early to contest the judge's referral of him to the Washington, D.C., federal court's grievance committee. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg's referral did not suggest whether any discipline should be imposed.
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A former Philadelphia municipal judge who accepted $90,000 from another candidate to abandon his congressional campaign was hit with a four-year suspension by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The court confirmed the state disciplinary board's recommendation to suspend rather than disbar Jimmie Moore. The Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Conduct said Moore violated professional conduct rules when he accepted more than the federal allowance for his campaign and filed a false campaign report to the Federal Election Commission.
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Grubhub, Uber Eats and Postmates must face an antitrust lawsuit by diners who accused them of driving up menu prices by exploiting their dominance in meal deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled. Frank LLP and Roche Freedman represent the plaintiffs. Weil Gotshal is defending Grubhub; Covington is guiding Uber; and Skadden is representing Postmates. (Reuters)
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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan said his earlier order allowing a J&J subsidiary’s Chapter 11 filing to proceed could be directly appealed in the 3rd Circuit. J&J used a legal maneuver dubbed the “Texas two-step” to put multibillion-dollar claims against its talc products into a newly created entity, LTL Management, whose lawyers at Jones Day filed for bankruptcy days later. J&J has maintained its talc products are safe. (Reuters)
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A Massachusetts judge dealt securities regulators a setback in their bid to revoke online brokerage Robinhood’s broker-dealer license, declaring the state’s fiduciary duty rule that underlies the case invalid. Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Michael Ricciuti said Secretary of State Bill Galvin lacked the authority to adopt the rule in March 2020. Galvin in December 2020 accused Robinhood of violating the fiduciary duty rule by using strategies that treated trading like a game to lure young, inexperienced customers. (Reuters)
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Planned Parenthood asked the Idaho Supreme Court to invalidate a state law that broadly mirrors Texas’ law banning most abortions and to stop it from going into effect as scheduled on April 22. (Reuters)
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Cooley added data protection, cybersecurity and information technology specialist Michael Egan as a partner in Washington, D.C. Egan was previously a partner at Baker McKenzie. (Reuters)
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Eversheds Sutherland set up shop in San Francisco with the addition of transactional attorney Baird Fogel as a partner to head the new office. Fogel was previously a partner at Morgan Lewis. (Reuters)
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Womble Bond Dickinson added finance attorney Laura Hoag as a partner to its capital markets practice in Washington, D.C. Hoag comes from Squire Patton Boggs. (Womble)
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Keon Hardemon, formerly a Miami-Dade county commissioner, joined Greenspoon Marder’s litigation practice as a partner in Miami. (Greenspoon Marder)
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K&L Gates added Courtney Thomas as a partner in its corporate practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. Thomas was previously general counsel to communications networks software and services provider Trilliant Networks. (K&L Gates)
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Norton Rose said Justin VandenBout joined the firm as a Houston-based partner in the firm's products, pharma, medical and mass tort practice. VandenBout joins from Chamberlain Hrdlicka. (Norton Rose)
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Morgan Lewis hired management-side employment lawyer Mark Stolzenburg as a partner in Chicago. Stolzenburg was previously a shareholder at Vedder Price. (Morgan Lewis)
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The U.S. Defense Department earlier this month finalized a new rule that should provide more information about award decisions to contractors that bid on agency contracts, writes Richard Arnholt of Bass, Berry & Sims. The increased transparency was intended to discourage bid protests by sharing more information about award decisions, he writes. But here’s how the new rule could function in practice.
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