Wake Up Call: Dissecting the Performance of the AmLaw 200

• The American Lawyer released its full list of 200 law firms ranked by revenue. In 2016, the second hundred law firms (i.e., firms ranked 101-200), collectively posted $19 billion in gross revenue up from $18.78 billion in 2015 — for1.17 percent growth. ( BLB ) Revenue per lawyer grew at about 1.5 percent, but firms in the middle kind of middled along at slower growth rates than firms at the top or bottom of the rankings. ( American Lawyer )

• At the Big Law Business Summit, Morgan Stanley’s top lawyer Eric Grossman sounded off on the structure of law departments at large financial institutions, saying that the compliance function should be housed under the same roof as the legal team. (BLB )

• Marc E. Kasowitz is is “a bare-knuckled litigator,” but not a criminal defense lawyer, nor is he from Washington, D.C. Still, Trump has turned to Kasowitz to defend him in an investigation “that could make or break the presidency: an independent counsel’s wide-ranging probe into Trump’s campaign and Russian interference in the election. He’ll quarterback a legal team that is certain to expand as former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s scrutiny intensifies.” (Bloomberg via BLB )

• As China prepares to implement a new Cybersecurity Law, foreign companies are grappling with rules “that could tighten what is already one of the world’s most restricted technology regimes.” (Bloomberg )

• McCarthy Tétrault,one of Canada’s largest law firms, has plans to open an office in Manhattan. ( American Lawyer )

• Dentons is set to vote on combining with a 20-lawyer firm in Peru, Gallo Barrios Pickmann. Meanwhile, the firm laid off five lawyers in Watford, England, including two partners and three solicitors, plus a paralegal and three secretaries. ( Legal Week )

• The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit appeared poised to take on the issue of whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s single-director structure runs afoul of the Constitution. ( Law.com )

• Where’s Trump? Four months into his presidency, there’s just empty wall space in several federal agency buildings in New York where the image of former President Barack Obama once hung. ( New York Law Journal )

• “In a fierce, sometimes personal speech, Sally Q. Yates, the acting attorney general fired by President Trump for refusing to defend his travel ban, told the graduating class at Harvard Law School on Wednesday that her decision was a surprising but crucial moment when ‘law and conscience intersected.’” (New York Times )

• “It takes a serious commitment to incompetence and deception to spawn as many ethical and legal concerns as the Trump administration has in just four months.” (NYT Editorial Board )

• The law firms that advised Blackstone Group LP, the world’s biggest private equity firm, and others part of an investor group that agreed to pay $1.84 billion to buy Des Moines, Iowa-based Fidelity & Guaranty Life, were Winston & Strawn LLP, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP advised the seller. (Bloomberg )