Wake Up Call: Burford Capital Starts Its Own Law Firm

• Litigation funder Burford Capital has launched its own law firm Burford Law , hiring London-based litigator Tom Evans away from Akin Gump. (The Lawyer)

• Litigation finance could become a factor in labor and employment cases, Jonathan Molot, chief investment officer of Burford Capital, said. (Bloomberg BNA)

• Yahoo is having an awful fall. A new report says the company started secretly scanning inbound email messages of its hundreds of millions of users after getting a request from U.S. authorities, a move that lead to the departure of at least two company officials. (Washington Post)

• A Nevada court gave U.S. Federal Trade Commission a record $1.27 billion summary judgment in its suit that alleged race car driver Scott Tucker and several of his companies were part of a deceptive payday lending scheme. A related criminal trial starts in April. (National Law Journal)

• After an international arbitration panel Tuesday reduced tennis star Maria Sharapova ‘sdoping suspension from two years to 15 months, finding the original penalty too harsh for her “unintentional” violation, BLB talked to her attorney at Fox Rothschild, John Haggerty. (Big Law Business)

Legal Market

• A look at three women lawyers who sued their firms and had different outcomes, but none of whom stayed in big law. (American Lawyer)

• The Indiana State Bar Association House of Delegates overwhelmingly rejected a recommendation to allow non-lawyers to hold equity investments in law firms. (Indiana Lawyer)

• In an interview, Akin Gump chairperson Kim Koopersmith discusses its governance, diversity initiatives, compensation model, and strategy. (Forbes)

• Nixon Peabody has lofty ambitions for Asia but its” slow and steady “approach in the region focuses on clients and its local partners, and learning from competitors’ experiences. (Asian Legal Business)

• The bankruptcy of a Florida-based biopharmaceutical company has left lawyers from over 20 law firms with $3.7 million in unpaid legal fees.(American Lawyer)

• Lawyers and taxi drivers have several things in common, such as if the meter isn’t running they’re not earning, and both are facing technological challenges to their business models. (Forbes )

• Low-cost clone funds are a real threat to hedge funds and could also menace the business of securities attorneys that advise hedge funds, writes an assistant professor of finance. (Above The Law)

• The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is trying to settle its market-manipulation case against Igor Oystacher and his Chicago firm 3Red Trading LLC. (Bloomberg)

The VP Debate

• Hillary Clinton’s running mate on the Democratic ticket for president, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, brought several guests to Tuesday’s vice presidential debate to highlight his start as a civil rights lawyer in Richmond, (CNN Politics)

• Before the debate, the Republican party began running an advertisement that criticizes Kaine’s unsuccessful pro bono work for death row defendants and his commutation of a death sentence when he was Virginia governor. (Law.com)

• Apart from their obvious political and ideological differences, Kaine and Mike Pence, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s running mate, have in common that they are both Catholic, midwestern and lawyers by training.(RT)

• Silicon Valley companies are concerned that if Trump wins the presidential election, the religious and politically conservative Pence might end up with a lot of power. (Wired)

• The debate was more entertaining to follow on Twitter than watching it live. (Wired)

SCOTUS and Other Court Rulings

• Taking on insider-trading laws for the first time in almost 20 years, the court this term could provide a decision that sets a new road map for Wall Street traders and rules enforcers. A look at the case and what’s at stake. (Bloomberg)

• Supreme Court arguments Tuesday over a bank fraud case briefly turned to an odd topic for the court: Kim Kardashian’s million-dollar jewelry heist. (Big Law Business)

• Lisa Griffin, a professor at Pace University Law School, and Rory Little, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law, discuss the first oral arguments of the Supreme Court’s new term in a double-jeopardy case concerning corruption charges involving Puerto Rican Senator Hector Martinez-Maldonato and the owner of a private security firm on the island. Audio. (Bloomberg Law)

• Bloomberg reporter Greg Stohr talks with BLB about recent moves by two former United States Solicitors General to join big law firms, and his expectations for the U.S. Supreme Court term that just began. (Big Law Business Podcast)

• A Puerto Rico federal judge declined to give class certification to a proposed securities class action lawsuit alleging that UBS Group AG’s Puerto Rico unit artificially inflated share prices and that it concealed market risks from its investors. (Law.com)

• Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and American Express Co. lost an early round of a lawsuit alleging they colluded to pin liability for fraudulent transactions on merchants who didn’t meet a chip-reading technology deadline. (Bloomberg/Big Law Business)

Laterals and Moves

• Toyota general counsel for the United Kingdom, Tim Greenwell, has left the carmaker to become legal director for a soccer team in the city of Southampton. (The Lawyer)

• Firms that fail to deal early with issues related to a partner’s approaching retirement can face such risks as a serious legal malpractice claim, a complicated personnel issue, or a partnership divide. Three recommended steps for preparing ahead, by two Dentons partners. (The Recorder)

• Four major law firms announced a total of some 112 lawyers have been promoted to partner,including 81 mostly non-equity partners at Kirkland & Ellis, 13 at Covington & Burling, 15 at Goodwin Procter, and four at Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle. (Big Law Business)

Technology

• After the report about Yahoo scanning email for the U.S. government, other big U.S. technology companies denied doing the same. (Wall Street Journal)

• A good law firm blog can definitely help win business, but a bad one can make a firm lose business or never get hired in the first place, in-house counsel said. (Corporate Counsel)

• New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady could have avoided the “spoliation” sanctionhe received in the Deflategate case if he had followed simple information governance and preservation steps. (Legaltech News)

• In a revamp of its mobile phone strategy, Google is launching a pair of slick and powerful handsets that will go head-to-head with Apple Inc.’s iconic iPhone. (Bloomberg)

• Federal investment in research and development, from cancer treatments to the Internet to multi-touch screens, has saved or improved lives and boosted economic growth. Why isn’t there more of it? (Bloomberg)

Miscellaneous • Plaintiffs lawyers for the alleged gang rape victim in a $21.5 million civil lawsuit against New York Knicks star guard Derrick Rose and two of his friends say Rose broke a judge’s gag order by talking about the case at a Tuesday press conference. (Daily News)

• Brooklyn district attorney Ken Thompson announced on Tuesday he has cancer and will take sick leave. (New York Times)

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Gabe Friedman.