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Law firms are off to a strong start in 2024 after a lackluster 2023 that saw weak client demand and declining collections on billed work, our colleague Karen Sloan reports.
Demand for legal services was up 1.9% in the first quarter of the year over the first three months of 2023, according to Thomson Reuters Institute’s Law Firm Financial Index, which tracks key financial metrics across 186 large and midsize law firms.
Billing rates, which were a consistent bright spot for firms in 2023, continued to rise with a 6.6% increase in the first quarter compared with a year ago, according to the index. Much of that rate growth was driven by midsize law firms. Revenue was up 5.7% and firm profits rose 5.8%, increases that were helped by firms holding direct expense growth to just 5.4%.
“There’s lots of positivity,” said William Josten, manager for enterprise legal content at the Thomson Reuters Institute, which shares the same parent company as Reuters.
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- Sidley is shrinking its footprint in China, as the tide of global law firms that entered the Chinese legal market in recent decades has begun to reverse. The firm said that it will close its Shanghai office, relocating staff and consolidating its China operations in Hong Kong and Beijing by September.
- U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted for allegedly accepting close to $600,000 in bribes in two schemes meant to benefit an Azerbaijani state-owned energy company and an unnamed bank based in Mexico. The federal indictment, returned by a grand jury in Texas on Tuesday and unsealed on Friday, said the bribes were laundered through sham consulting contracts into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, the Democratic congressman’s wife, from December 2014 through at least November 2021.
- Paul Weiss launched a Latin America practice. Maria-Leticia Ossa Daza, a New York-based M&A partner who headed the Latin America practice at Willkie, will lead the new group at Paul Weiss.
- President Joe Biden followed through on his vow to veto a Republican-backed measure that would have repealed an NLRB rule treating companies as the employers of many of their contract and franchise workers and requiring them to bargain with those workers’ unions. The proposal to repeal the rule passed Congress narrowly and it is unlikely Republicans can muster the two-thirds majority to override the veto by Biden. A federal judge in March blocked the rule from taking effect, but that decision will likely be appealed.
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That’s how many SEC filings were impacted in fraud committed by auditor BF Borgers and its owner Benjamin Borgers, according to a new SEC complaint against the company. The SEC alleges that Borgers did not properly prepare and maintain audit documentation, fabricated audit planning meetings, and in some cases simply passed off previous audits for the current audit period. The auditor and Borgers, whose clients include Trump Media, paid civil penalties and agreed to permanent suspensions from practicing as accountants on SEC filings, effective immediately. Reuters could not immediately ascertain which filings or companies had been affected.
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- Today, the top Massachusetts court is set to consider whether the state’s voters will get to decide two ballot proposals in November that would redefine the relationship between app-based companies like Uber and Lyft and their drivers – one backed by industry and the other by labor.
- Also today, a week-long trial is expected to start at which Microsoft will defend against allegations that its Cortana virtual assistant infringes a patent belonging to a subsidiary of patent-licensing company Quarterhill.
- On Wednesday, Bill Hwang’s fraud trial over the collapse of his $36 billion Archegos Capital Management is expected to begin in Manhattan federal court. Former Archegos CFO Patrick Halligan is also expected to go on trial. Both pleaded not guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud and racketeering conspiracy charges. Hwang has also pleaded not guilty to separate market manipulation charges. The trial could last months.
- On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco will hear Elon Musk’s appeal of a magistrate judge’s order requiring him to testify in the SEC’s probe into whether Musk followed the law in his acquisition of Twitter.
- On Friday, a hearing is scheduled in the government’s criminal case against Jean Morose Viliena, a former Haitian mayor who was indicted on U.S. visa fraud charges after a jury ordered him to pay $15.5 million in a civil case over allegations he led a brutal campaign to kill and torture his political opponents. Viliena is urging Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston to review and revoke a federal magistrate’s order detaining him.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- A Texas federal judge stayed a lawsuit by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups challenging the FTC’s near-total ban on employee noncompete agreements. U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, in a written order said that under an informal court doctrine known as the “first to file rule,” a nearly identical lawsuit that tax service firm Ryan filed against the FTC a day earlier should proceed first.
- A divided 5th Circuit declined the CFPB’s request to reconsider its ruling holding that a Texas judge wrongly transferred to Washington, D.C., a banking industry-backed lawsuit challenging the agency’s new rule capping credit card late fees at $8. The court in a 2-1 vote rejected the CFPB’s request to reconsider the court’s April 5 ruling, opting instead to make minor changes to its opinion that did not disturb the ultimate result.
- Elon Musk’s carmaker Tesla sued an Indian battery maker for infringing its trademark by using the brand name “Tesla Power” to promote its products, seeking damages and a permanent injunction against the company from a New Delhi judge. Tesla in a hearing at the Delhi High Court said the Indian company had continued advertising its products with the “Tesla Power” brand despite a cease-and-desist notice sent in April 2022, according to details posted on the court website.
- Amneal Pharmaceuticals said it had reached a deal valued at more than $270 million to resolve claims it helped fuel the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic, becoming the latest drug company to settle lawsuits over the addiction crisis brought by states and local governments. Amneal reached an agreement in principle to pay $92.5 million in cash and provide $180 million worth of naloxone nasal spray, an overdose treatment medication, to resolve lawsuits by U.S. states, local governments and Native American tribes.
- Goldman Sachs said it had reached an in-principle settlement to resolve a 2014 class action lawsuit related to trading in platinum and palladium. The investment bank was among a number of defendants named in the lawsuit, which alleged they violated antitrust laws by conspiring to manipulate a benchmark for physical platinum and palladium prices.
- Adidas failed to persuade the 2nd Circuit to reinstate its lawsuit claiming fashion house Thom Browne ripped off the company’s iconic three-stripe trademark. Adidas had argued in its appeal that a Manhattan judge issued flawed instructions to the federal jury that rejected the lawsuit last year. The appeals court disagreed, affirming that the jury instructions “appropriately reflected the law and evidence presented at trial.”
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- Buchalter added eight lawyers in Nashville, including partners Jay Bowen, Lauren Kilgore and Lauren Spahn. They arrive from Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley, and Norton. (Buchalter)
- Faegre Drinker hired finance and restructuring partner Glenn Reitman in Dallas. He previously was head of finance for Texas at DLA Piper. (Faegre Drinker)
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Discretionary denials of inter partes review have been controversial at the PTAB. On April 19, the USPTO issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that seeks to modify existing practices for addressing discretionary denial issues, write David McCombs, Jonathan Bowser and Eugene Goryunov of Haynes Boone. The notice is noteworthy for what it proposes – and does not propose.
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