Wake Up Call: Eyeing Recruits, Boutiques Exceed Cravath Bonus Scale

• Looking for an edge as they recruit top talent, several boutique law firms have announced associate bonuses equaling or exceeding the market standard recently set by Cravath, which ranges from $15,000 to $100,000. Houston-based litigation boutique Susman Godfrey, which vowed to blow the Cravath scale “out of the water,” said its year-end bonuses for partnership-bound associates will span from $45,000 to $170,000, with two associates getting total bonuses topping $220,000. ( American Lawyer ) ( Above The Law )

• Locke Lord elected David Taylor, currently managing partner of its Houston office, to become the firm’s chairman Jan. 1. A corporate and securities lawyer who has spent his entire legal career at Locke Lord, Taylor takes over from Jerry Clements, who has led the firm since 2006. ( BLB )

• Mayer Brown announced plans to open a Tokyo office in 2018’s first half to serve its growing clientele in Japan. The office will be headed by M&A, finance and infrastructure partner Rupert Burrows, recently hired from the Tokyo office of London-based firm Ashurst. ( BLB )

• The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday declined to review whether lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees are protected from workplace discrimination under a federal civil rights law. ( Bloomberg Law via BLB )

• After the indictment of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, for allegedly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the Department of Justice is increasingly asking law firms about their lobbying for foreign governments. That has lobbying and PR shops scrambling to comply with the law. ( Daily Beast )

Legal Market/Actions

• Trump’s legal team looks outmatched as they try to protect him from Special Counsel Mueller. ( Washington Post )

• Prestigious gigs as U.S. Supreme Court law clerks have almost exclusively gone to white people in the last 13 years, mostly to men, and mainly to graduates of a handful of elite law schools, according to reports. Since 2005, 85 percent of SCOTUS clerks recruited have been white, while male clerks have outnumbered female clerks two to one, it says. ( National Law Journal ) About half of Supreme Court clerks graduated from either Harvard or Yale’s law schools. ( National Law Journal )

• Startups are not the only source of legal tech tools that improve process efficiency while also making some lawyers nervous for their jobs. A new report says law firms and in-house legal teams are developing an increasing number of such products. For example, Norton Rose Fulbright recently developed its own forensic analysis tool and Dentons created cloud-based software to help manage transactions for companies raising capital. ( Financial Times )

• The University of Chicago said Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser in the Obama White House, will join the university’s law school as a senior fellow Jan. 1. ( Crain’s Chicago Business )

• Global M&A activity may be headed for an upswing in 2018 as private companies increasingly look to use the transactions to expand their markets and client base, according to a new report from Deloitte, based on a survey of about 1,900 executives in over 30 countries. ( PR Newswire )

• A takeover battle between two Canadian medical marijuana producers is turning nasty as CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. is raising new concerns that securities laws may have been violated by Aurora Cannabis Inc.’s C$582 million ($453 million) offer. ( Bloomberg )

Legal Actions

• New Yorker magazine dumped political reporter Ryan Lizza after a woman represented by attorney Douglas Wigdor accused him of sexual misconduct. ( Bloomberg )

• A former executive producer at the National Football League’s TV network and two ex-players allegedly groped and made sexually explicit comments to female colleague Jami Cantor, according to an amended complaint by Cantor, a former employee. ( Bloomberg )

• Two HNA Group Co. units were sued in New York on claims they failed to complete a $325 million acquisition of a U.S. technology company because the Chinese group provided false and inconsistent information about its ownership to a national security-review panel. ( Bloomberg )

• Law firm Rodier & Rodier is suing the estate of late teen idol David Cassidy for $102,000 in unpaid legal bills. ( The Blast )

Regulators and Enforcement

• HSBC Holdings Plc said its five-year-old deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice has expired, signaling the U.S. is satisfied with the bank’s improvements to its compliance systems after it was ensnared in a money-laundering scandal in Mexico. ( Bloomberg )

• The payments industry is hoping 2018 will bring regulatory innovations for the fintech sector. ( Bloomberg Law )

• U.S. senators urged the EPA, OSHA, and DOT to step up scrutiny of a global industrial packager already under federal investigation in 10 states for alleged workplace-safety violations. ( Bloomberg Law )

Russia Probes

• A federal judge scolded Manafort for contributing to an opinion article published last week in the Kyiv Post but she deferred ruling on a proposed $11.7 million bail package that would free Manafort from home confinement. ( Bloomberg )

The Trump Administration

• A Louisiana private investigator who pleaded guilty to misusing Trump’s Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president’s federal tax information before his election last year faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. ( Associated Press via Bloomberg )

• Transgender recruits will be allowed to enlist in the military beginning Jan. 1, the Pentagon said Monday, as Trump’s ordered ban suffered more legal setbacks. ( AP via Bloomberg )

Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts

• The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday rejected a petition seeking to prevent defendants in court from attacking a patent on subject matter eligibility grounds. ( Bloomberg Law via BLB )

• Llamas, llamas, llamas!, the cloying Masterpiece Cakeshop case, and more from the latest Read That Back Blog. ( Read That Back Blog via US Law Week )

Technology

• Sweden, Germany, Portugal and some other EU markets offer hints of what the demise of net neutrality could bring in the U.S. ( New York Times DealBook )

• Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. are on track to add digital trade data flow provisions to an updated NAFTA but may be missing a chance to address related privacy issues that could serve as a global model for future trade pacts. ( Bloomberg Law )

• Amazon.com Inc. took about a year to become the third-largest subscription digital music service, behind Spotify and Apple. ( Bloomberg Businessweek )

• Are connected speakers a privacy risk? The ACLU and others say yes, but not everyone agrees. ( Bloomberg )

Miscellaneous

• Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, using a recently passed law, has removed more than two dozen senior judges, including the head of a regional court that was deliberating a case involving his family. ( Bloomberg )

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.