Wake Up Call: Covid-19 Powers Record Year for Class Actions

In today’s column, Paul Hastings launched an energy and infrastructure team that takes stock of new technologies and investors’ ESG concerns; Cadwalader’s return-to-office plan appears to emphasize benefits of actually being in the office; FIFA’s former global compliance chief took a job at super market chain Albertsons.

• Leading off, U.S. companies in 2020 spent a record $2.9 billion defending themselves from class action lawsuits, as the pandemic fueled a rise in case numbers, according to Carlton Fields’ 10th annual class actions survey report. (Global Legal Post) Top U.K. law firms expanded their cash reserves 60% last year, early in the pandemic. (Law.com International)
• Cadwalader presented a return-to-office plan that takes note of flexibility lessons learned during the pandemic but that anticipates the office will be the “primary workspace” for attorneys and staffers in the new year, a report says. (Above the Law)
• Big Law associates, so-called meme lords, are making sarcastic Instagram posts with images of themselves working remotely. The point is to vent frustration over feeling overworked and under-appreciated by their managers. (American Lawyer)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Law firms in Texas have recently seen potential in working for renewable energy clients, and, meanwhile, firms around the country have been making ESG partner hires. In that context, Paul Hastings yesterday announced a new energy transition and infrastructure team that it said takes note of an industry shift toward new, low-carbon technologies and “investors who prioritize environmental, social, and governance considerations.” The team combines resources from its M&A, private equity, finance, and regulatory practices to advise energy industry participants. (PaulHastings.com)
• A former Dentons corporate partner is suing the firm with allegations that it fired him because he reported an attempt to divert millions of dollars in funds from his China-based client. King & Spalding, which represents Dentons, refuted the allegations. (The Recorder) A Mother Jones article says Winston & Strawn’s prominent white collar defense partner Abbe Lowell, who has represented Bill Clinton, Jared Kusher, and other big names, is facing conflict-of-interest allegations by a former client. (Mother Jones)
• King & Spalding and the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs announced a partnership to provide legal and other support to Atlanta’s Black entrepreneurs and small business owners. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Ex-DLA Piper partner Edward Hanover, who for close to three years had his hands full as global chief compliance officer at FIFA, soccer’s scandal-plagued world governing body, has taken a job at Albertsons Companies as senior vice president, chief ethics and compliance officer and regulatory legal. (Radical Compliance); the Biden administration nominated former Jenner & Block partner Damon Smith to be general counsel of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he’s currently principal deputy GC and acting GC. (WhiteHouse.gov)
• Nixon Peabody recruited longtime Virginia federal prosecutor Mark Lytle as a partner in Washington in the firm’s government investigations and white-collar defense practice; Lytle was chief of the financial crimes and public corruption unit in the U.S. attorneys office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and he served briefly as associate U.S. attorney general. (NixonPeabody.com)
• Baker McKenzie hired intellectual property litigator and data security pro Stephen Reynolds as a partner in Chicago. He arrives from Ice Miller, where he co-founded the data security and privacy practice; Willkie Farr & Gallagher brought in veteran finance and restructuring lawyer Melainie Mansfield as a partner in Chicago. She arrives from DLA Piper, where she was a partner, after 24 years at Milbank; Michael Best hired two litigators in Raleigh, NC: partner Carrie Meigs and senior associate Justin May arrive from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith; Greenberg Traurig added two corporate shareholders in South Korea, hiring Eun Sang Hwang from Paul Hastings and Jang Hyuk Yeo from Lee & Ko. (GTLaw.com)

Legal Education

• The American Bar Association urged the Biden administration to take steps to ease the burden of student loan debt. (ABA Journal) The ABA approved the teach-out plan of Florida Coastal School of Law, a for-profit institution that recently lost its federal financial aid. The plan lets the school’s current students finish their course work at other ABA-approved law schools. (ABA Journal)