Wake Up Call: Crusading FTC Chair Lina Khan a ‘Wonky Cult Hero’

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has become “the wonky cult hero and legal wunderkind of a new progressive movement determined to break the economic and political power of Big Business and Big Tech.” Khan’s impatience to prevent and break up monopolies has “not sat well inside the cozy, bipartisan community of lawyers and economists” who specialize in antitrust law. (Washington Post)
• The California State Bar, which runs a deficit of nearly $4 million a year, plans to fix its budget woes by scrapping its existing bar exam and writing a new one “from scratch.” One proposal would allow for “alternative test administration arrangements,” in part through no longer renting out giant facilities to hold the tests. (Above The Law)
• As international law firms scale back in Hong Kong “in droves,” the legal industry has seen an increasing number of combinations between firms founded in Hong Kong and mainland China. This suggests that more of the city’s local practices are “evaluating their future” as independent firms. (Law.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Adam Rehm and Rhiannon D’Agostin have joined Norton Rose Fulbright as partners in the intellectual property practice. The entire group arrives from Polsinelli.
• Jennifer S. O’Connor and Jim H. Pulliam have joined Polsinelli has shareholders in Miami and Raleigh, N.C., respectively.
• Luke Iovine has joined Seyfarth Shaw as a partner in the corporate department in New York. He joins from Hogan Lovells.
• John Saran has joined Holland & Knight as a partner in the Chicago office. He previously practiced at Ropes & Gray.
• Alicja Biskupska-Haas has joined Goodwin as a partner in the private investment funds practice in the New York office.
• Charles Carson has joined Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani as a partner with the commercial litigation practice group in the Phoenix office.