Wake Up Call: Ethics Group Hits 15 AGs With Election Complaints

In today’s column, law firms in Puerto Rico are trying to keep working after Hurricane Fiona hit the island; Eversheds Sutherland moved to bigger premises for its growing Chicago office; and Donald Trump’s Save America political action committee spent $3.9 million on legal fees in August.

• Leading off, advocacy group The 65 Project filed ethics complaints against Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and 14 other current and former pro-Trump state attorneys general it accuses of participating in a “concerted effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.” The group posted on its website complaints it filed to courts and bar associations in Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Utah, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and South Carolina. (The 65 Project)(Arkansas Democrat Online) (Nebraska Examiner)
• Donald Trump’s Save America political action committee spent $3.9 million on legal fees in August, as the former president’s legal problems ballooned. (USA Today)
• Jones Day US partner-in-charge Kevyn Orr says the portrait that New York Times journalist David Enrich’s book “Servants of the Damned” paints of his firm and the legal profession “bears little resemblance to reality.” (WSJ)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• After Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico with power outages and flooding, many law firms on the island are running their offices from power generators and dealing with damage. (National Law Journal)
• Eversheds Sutherland, which opened an office in Chicago in 2019, said it has moved into bigger space in the city to accommodate its growth. The office is now at 16 attorneys, including eight partners. (Eversheds Sutherland)
• If Ernst & Young goes ahead with its plan to free its consulting division that includes legal services from its auditing unit, the consulting unit could become a bigger competitor in the legal services sector, especially in the market for young legal talent. (American Lawyer)
• Alaska’s former acting attorney general was indicted by an Anchorage grand jury on three felony charges of sexual abuse of a minor. (Anchorage Daily News) An Arizona judge disbarred an attorney accused of forging his client’s name on a settlement check. (Law.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Duane Morris added eight attorneys from Seyfarth Shaw for its new workplace class action defense divisions within its employment practice group. The chair of Seyfarth’s complex discrimination litigation/class action practice group, Gerald L. Maatman Jr., joined as a partner in Chicago and to lead Duane Morris’ new workplace class action practice. Also arriving in Chicago are partner Jennifer Riley, who becomes vice-chair of the new group, partner Michael DeMarino, and four associates. Special counsel Rebecca Bjork joins in Washington. Former Seyfarth attorney Brandon L. Spurlock, recently a consultant at Thomson Reuters, joined as special counsel in Chicago. (Duane Morris)
• Kirkland & Ellis in London hired Allen & Overy’s global co-head of its infrastructure practice, Sara Pickersgill, as a partner. She’ll lead the firm’s expansion in the European energy and infrastructure sector; Nelson Mullins said it rehired a former health-care attorney at the firm, Christine Burke Worthen, who returns as a partner in Boston. She was recently at Northern Light Health as vice president and senior counsel; Troutman Pepper recruited former longtime Pennsylvania federal prosecutor Michael “Mike” Lowe as a partner in Philadelphia in its health sciences litigation practice group; Morgan Lewis elevated to partner 47 lawyers from 14 offices and 13 practices, effective Oct. 1. (Morgan Lewis)
• Near, a data intelligence software-as-a-service platform, announced the hire of former Apple in-house attorney Jay Angelo as general counsel; Greenberg Traurig patent shareholder Chinh Pham, co-chair of the firm’s venture capital & emerging technology and intellectual property & technology practices, started as the new head of the Boston Bar Association. (Boston Business Journal)

Technology

• A 2004 Federal Judicial Center manual said virtual hearings and electronic presentation of evidence could help cut costs and ease other challenges linked to complex litigation. Thanks to the pandemic, courts finally started implementing those and other technological changes in litigation. (Reuters)