Good morning. The last year did not end on a high note for law firms when it comes to client demand, according to a new report. Plus, thousands of lawsuits over Johnson & Johnson’s talc products are getting a new judge, and the Camp Lejeune cases head to federal court. Here’s our news valentine to you!
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REUTERS/Thomson Reuters Institute & Financial Insights - Law Firm Financial Index |
Demand took a hit for law firms in the last quarter of 2022, with the latest data showing a decline in demand for practice areas across the board, according to the latest edition of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s Law Firm Financial Index.
Overall, demand was down 3.9% in the fourth quarter, with M&A work seeing the biggest drop, according to the index, which tracks key financial metrics across 170 large and midsized law firms. Firms now face an “unsustainable” situation in which there is not enough work to occupy the attorneys they raced to hire in 2021, the report found. Law firm finances have been like a pendulum, swinging dramatically between a dismal 2020, record-breaking profitability in 2021 and a challenging 2022, said William Josten, manager for enterprise legal content at the Thomson Reuters Institute, which shares the same parent company as Reuters. But here’s why Josten says there are concrete signs that the pendulum could be swinging in a positive direction already.
For more on the legal industry: Law firms face daunting 2023 amid falling profits and demand
Lawyer productivity, demand dropped in 2022 - Wells Fargo report |
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Perkins Coie formally ended its defense work for Twitter in a California case, more than a month after Elon Musk, the social media platform’s CEO, told Reuters that an internal "error" caused the company to hire the law firm that he has publicly denounced for alleged corruption. Willkie Farr attorneys are taking over the legal work. Perkins Coie did not respond to a message seeking comment. (Reuters)
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Boies Schiller, Hausfeld and other plaintiffs’ firms urged the 11th Circuit to reject challenges to a $2.7 billion health insurance antitrust settlement and an award of $667 million in legal fees and expenses. The firms argued against claims that the fee was excessive. (Reuters)
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Boston-based law firm Foley Hoag opened a new office in Denver, the firm's first U.S. location outside of the Northeast region. Partners Christopher Mosley and Brooke Yates, who joined remotely from Denver-founded midsize firm Sherman & Howard in April, will lead the new office. (Reuters)
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That’s how many circuit and district court judges President Joe Biden has appointed so far. Cindy Chung, the top federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, was confirmed on Monday evening to serve on the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit. Gina Mendez-Miro, nominated to the U.S. district court in Puerto Rico, could soon become the 100th Biden-era court appointment. Twenty-three of Biden’s 30 circuit court appointments thus far were women.
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Get ready for a fight over control of private litigation arising from the megabillion-dollar collapse of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX — and the legal fees that go with it. Boies Schiller and The Moskowitz Law Firm have filed a petition asking the JPML to transfer all of the private FTX cases to federal court in Miami, where they are litigating claims that FTX’s celebrity “brand ambassadors” violated U.S. and Florida securities laws. But a rival slate of law firms, led by Edelson, Pomerantz and Kaplan Fox, is gearing up for overlapping — but not identical — litigation in San Francisco federal court. Alison Frankel has the details.
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"Overall, these findings underscore the need for interventions to address work-related stress and loneliness in the legal profession." |
Johnson & Johnson subsidiary LTL Management will appear in New Jersey federal bankruptcy court to discuss its next steps after the 3rd Circuit last month ended its attempt to offload tens of thousands of lawsuits over its talc products into bankruptcy court. LTL had tried to use the bankruptcy system to resolve 38,000 lawsuits alleging that J&J baby powder and talc products cause cancer. The company said in a statement that it would challenge the ruling and that its talc products are safe. The ruling marked the first major repudiation of an emerging legal strategy with the potential to upend U.S. corporate liability law.
The parents of a 6-year-old child killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting will urge a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Texas today to let them proceed to trial against right-wing provocateur Alex Jones, who claimed for years that the 2012 shooting was a hoax. The trial would be the third defamation trial against Jones and his Infowars media company, after two previous trials found Jones liable for $1.5 billion in damages. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Judge Christopher Lopez is scheduled to take up the dispute. The plaintiffs are Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose six-year-old son Noah Pozner was killed in the shooting. Lawyers for Jones have objected to lifting the stay.
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on financial system safeguards for digital assets, as regulators and enforcement agencies grapple with the crash of crypto platforms. The panel will hear from Lee Reiners, policy director at Duke Financial Economics Center; Linda Jeng, a visiting financial tech scholar at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute of International Economic Law; and Yesha Yadav, at Vanderbilt’s law school.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Veterans and their family members have filed more than 100 lawsuits in North Carolina federal court claiming injuries from contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, following the expiration of a key waiting period of a federal law governing the claims. The PACT Act, which allowed claims to be filed over the injuries, first directed claims to an administrative process before they could be brought in court. (Reuters)
Alcon Vision will pay Johnson & Johnson's J&J Surgical Vision $199 million to settle legal battles over intellectual property related to the companies' laser eye-surgery devices. A copyright trial was set to begin this week in Delaware over claims that Alcon stole software from J&J's iFS Laser system, used for LASIK vision correction and other surgeries, with a J&J expert arguing that the company was entitled to at least $3.1 billion in damages. (Reuters)
Portions of a Georgia special grand jury's report on Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election should be publicly released, but any recommendations on criminal charges will remain sealed for now, a state judge ruled. The panel's findings, which have remained sealed since the final report's existence was disclosed in January, could potentially serve as the basis for a prosecution of Trump or his associates who attempted to reverse President Joe Biden's statewide victory. (Reuters)
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Stanford Law professor Michael Callahan was named legal chief at electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive. Callahan was executive director of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, an initiative of Stanford's law and business schools. (Reuters)
Willkie Farr brought on two D.C.-based litigation partners: Timothy Heaphy, who will be co-chair of the corporate compliance, internal investigations and government enforcement practice, and Soumya Dayananda. Heaphy was a top investigator for the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Dayananda led a House team that examined the law enforcement and military response to the riot. (Reuters)
Simpson Thacher said Ed Ford and Sacha Gofton-Salmond will join the firm as London-based partners focused on secondary market transactions. Previously, they were at Travers Smith. (Simpson Thacher)
Paul Hastings added London-based restructuring partner Helena Potts, who arrives at the firm from Shearman & Sterling. (Paul Hastings)
King & Spalding added Geoffrey King as a Chicago-based partner focused on the corporate, finance and investments team. He was previously at Katten Muchin. (King & Spalding)
K&L Gates added Michael Stortz as a litigation and dispute resolution partner in the firm’s San Francisco office. He was previously at Akin Gump. (K&L Gates)
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