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In the span of four years, Kramer Levin co-managing partner Howard Spilko went from "very happy" with the firm's geographical footprint to announcing a combination with a more-than-2,000-lawyer global giant. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at the increasing headwinds for smaller law firms that led to that change in position.
The legal market is positioned to have a very strong year, with firms seeing increases in demand, revenue and attorney productivity during the first three quarters of 2024, according to the results of a survey by Citi Global Wealth at Work.
Advocates are not holding out hope for bills that would firm up a code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court, impose term limits on justices or give judiciary employees antidiscrimination job protections, saying Republican control of the federal government will likely stall any progress that's been made with court reform efforts.
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the next U.S. attorney general, seeking to elevate a close political ally to lead a Justice Department that the Florida lawmaker has sharply criticized and that last year declined to charge him in a sex-trafficking investigation.
Squire Patton Boggs LLP announced Wednesday that a partner who led Paul Hastings LLP's team on antitrust regulatory issues will lead its U.S. antitrust practice — a group the firm says it's currently focused on deepening.
The U.S. Senate voted 50-46 on Wednesday to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Hawley for a district judgeship for the Central District of Illinois.
Wiley Rein LLP has hired as its new chief financial officer an administrator who had overseen national firm Chapman and Cutler LLP's financial functions since January.
Perkins Coie LLP is rehiring an insurance litigator from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, as the firm's insurance recovery work has more than doubled in the past three years, that group's practice chair told Law360 Pulse on Wednesday.
Theodore B. Olson, the founder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP's appellate and constitutional law practice group and a former U.S. solicitor general, died Wednesday, the law firm announced.
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that William J. McGinley, a former Jones Day partner who worked as assistant to both the president and Cabinet secretary during Trump's first term, will serve as White House counsel during the upcoming term.
The U.S. Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with whether an alleged mobster can be guilty of a murder-for-hire scheme if he did not physically participate in the botched hit job, with one justice remarking that both parties' interpretations of a "violent" crime of inaction could produce absurd results.
While most in-house counsel aren't actively looking to shift to private practice, a survey out Tuesday found there may be an increasing openness to that career lane shift if certain conditions — such as better salaries, work-life balance, and firm culture — are met.
Freshfields has added the former associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice as the firm's new co-chair of its congressional investigations team, according to an announcement Tuesday.
Legal recruiters in the nation's capital, used to seeing a bump in activity around presidential elections, say they have been fielding a rush of calls from government attorneys in the aftermath of President-elect Donald Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last week.
Following last week's election, a federal judge for the Southern District of Ohio has reversed his decision to take semi-retired status, leaving President-elect Donald Trump with one fewer judicial vacancy to fill.
Justice Samuel Alito denied as moot Tuesday an immigrant rights group's bid to withdraw a Texas court order freezing a new program that would have allowed certain noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to stay in the United States while applying for legal status.
East Coast regional firm Miles & Stockbridge PC on Tuesday announced a pending merger with 30-attorney Washington, D.C., real estate finance boutique Krooth & Altman LLP, expanding Miles & Stockbridge's presence in the nation's capital and bringing its attorney headcount above 200.
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP has hired the former general counsel of solar company Summit Ridge Energy to beef up its energy and infrastructure practice in Washington, D.C., the firm announced on Tuesday.
A promotion to partner or election to practice group chair means a slew of new responsibilities and also lots of well-deserved recognition. Law360 reveals the list of attorneys whose commitment to legal excellence earned them highly coveted spots in the law firm leadership ranks. Find out if your old legal friends — or rivals — moved up in the third quarter of the year.
A New York state judge agreed to a joint motion to freeze the proceedings in Donald Trump's hush money case following his electoral victory last week, allowing the Manhattan district attorney time to brief the court on "appropriate steps going forward."
Milbank LLP announced Monday that it will hand its associates year-end bonuses ranging from $15,000 to $115,000 depending on seniority, numbers that nearly align with bonuses the firm and its peers handed out last year.
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP said Monday that it is joining forces with U.S. law firm Kramer Levin to form a global legal powerhouse in a move that could signal further consolidation in the sector.
The U.S. Supreme Court will be closed Monday for Veterans Day, but the justices will return to the bench Tuesday to consider whether a 60-day deadline for immigrants to voluntarily leave the country has a grace period and what evidence is needed to allege securities fraud.
U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni said Friday she plans to take senior status in January, a departure that could leave another vacancy for President-elect Donald Trump to fill on the Southern District of New York bench when he returns to office.
A Kentucky electric utility called on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule strengthening federal regulations requiring safe management of coal ash dumped at operating and retired power plants, while it appeals the D.C. Circuit's refusal to block the rule.
Laranda Walker at Susman Godfrey, who was raising two small children and working her way to partner when she suddenly lost her husband, shares what fighting to keep her career on track taught her about accepting help, balancing work and family, and discovering new reserves of inner strength.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Turn Deferral To My Advantage?Diana Leiden at Winston & Strawn discusses how first-year associates whose law firm start dates have been deferred can use the downtime to hone their skills, help their communities, and focus on returning to BigLaw with valuable contacts and out-of-the-box insights.
Female attorneys and others who pause their careers for a few years will find that gaps in work history are increasingly acceptable among legal employers, meaning with some networking, retraining and a few other strategies, lawyers can successfully reenter the workforce, says Jill Backer at Ave Maria School of Law.
ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools pose significant risks to the integrity of legal work, but the key for law firms is not to ban these tools, but to implement them responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, say Natalie Pierce and Stephanie Goutos at Gunderson Dettmer.
Opinion
We Must Continue DEI Efforts Despite High Court HeadwindsThough the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down affirmative action in higher education, law firms and their clients must keep up the legal industry’s recent momentum advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession in order to help achieve a just and prosperous society for all, says Angela Winfield at the Law School Admission Council.
Law firms that fail to consider their attorneys' online habits away from work are not using their best efforts to protect client information and are simplifying the job of plaintiffs attorneys in the case of a breach, say Mark Hurley and Carmine Cicalese at Digital Privacy and Protection.
Though effective writing is foundational to law, no state requires attorneys to take continuing legal education in this skill — something that must change if today's attorneys are to have the communication abilities they need to fulfill their professional and ethical duties to their clients, colleagues and courts, says Diana Simon at the University of Arizona.
In the most stressful times for attorneys, when several transactions for different partners and clients peak at the same time and the phone won’t stop buzzing, incremental lifestyle changes can truly make a difference, says Lindsey Hughes at Haynes Boone.
Series
Ask A Mentor: How Can I Support Gen Z Attorneys?Meredith Beuchaw at Lowenstein Sandler discusses how senior attorneys can assist the newest generation of attorneys by championing their pursuit of a healthy work-life balance and providing the hands-on mentorship opportunities they missed out on during the pandemic.
A recent data leak at Proskauer via a cloud data storage platform demonstrates key reasons why law firms must pay attention to data safeguarding, including the increasing frequency of cloud-based data breaches and the consequences of breaking client confidentiality, says Robert Kraczek at One Identity.
There are a few communication tips that law students in summer associate programs should consider to put themselves in the best possible position to receive an offer, and firms can also take steps to support those to whom they are unable to make an offer, says Amy Mattock at Georgetown University Law Center.
Many attorneys are going to use artificial intelligence tools whether law firms like it or not, so firms should educate them on AI's benefits, limits and practical uses, such as drafting legal documents, to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving legal market, say Thomas Schultz and Eden Bernstein at Kellogg Hansen.
Dealing with the pressures associated with law school can prove difficult for many future lawyers, but there are steps students can take to manage stress — and schools can help too, say Ryan Zajic and Dr. Janani Krishnaswami at UWorld.
Amid ongoing disagreements on whether states should mandate implicit bias training as part of attorneys' continuing legal education requirements, Stephanie Wilson at Reed Smith looks at how unconscious attitudes or stereotypes adversely affect legal practice, and whether mandatory training programs can help.
To become more effective advocates, lawyers need to rethink the ridiculous, convoluted language they use in correspondence and write letters in a clear, concise and direct manner, says legal writing instructor Stuart Teicher.