Wake Up Call: Florida Federal Judge Quits to Join Boies

In today’s column, Allen & Overy is expanding its London-based legal tech incubator; KKR poached the global chief for ESG of a rival private equity firm; Big Law firms are taking an easy-does-it approach to reopening their offices.

• Leading off, Florida U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro is retiring from the bench to join Boies Schiller Flexner as a partner in Miami. (Miami Herald) (Reuters)
• U.K. elite firm Allen & Overy said it’s adding 11 startups to its legal tech innovation hub and incubator, Fuse, which aims to develop legal, regulatory, and deal-related solutions at its headquarters in London. “Technology is no longer a fringe consideration for lawyers,” said A&O partner and head of Fuse Shruti Ajitsaria. (AllenOvery.com)
• Big Law firms are aware that potential lateral recruits and young lawyers are watching how they handle the return to office after a year-plus of working from home. So some firms are taking “gentle,” phased-in approaches to the returns. (American Lawyer)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• As firms move to make their compensation for junior lawyers more uniform, Norton Rose Fulbright recently announced it plans to standardize its structure for year-end bonuses nationwide. However, some of its special bonuses are still calculated on a regional basis. (Above the Law)
• Some corporate counsel have expressed interest in working with nonlawyer-owned firms with innovative, flexible approaches to fees, especially as Arizona and Utah have moved to ease restrictions on such firms. But it’s not clear big corporations’ legal departments will actually send business to such firms. (Corporate Counsel)
• Colleagues of veteran Washington criminal defense lawyer Bernard Grimm, a former Cozen O’Connor shareholder, expressed surprise at his recent consent to disbarment. (National Law Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Private equity firm KKR & Co. Inc. poached Blackstone Group SVP and global head of environmental, social, and corporate governance, Alison Fenton-Willock, to be KKR’s director for sustainable investing. She’s a former Big Law attorney and was an in-house attorney at Stifel Financial Corp. and Barclays Wealth and Investment Management. (New Private Markets); BakerHostetler said private equity lawyer Raam Jani joined the firm as a partner in Chicago. According to his LinkedIn profile, he arrives from Vedder Price, where he was a shareholder, and he earlier spent 14 years at McDermott Will & Emery, including as a partner. (BakerLaw.com)
• Big Four accounting firm EY’s legal branch hired Dechert partner Monica Gogna as its financial regulation head based in London. EY also hired a new head of legal data protection, and four other lawyers, according to reports. Gogna filed a gender- and race-discrimination complaint against Dechert that she dropped shortly after leaving the firm in August 2020. (The Lawyer) (Law.com) U.K.-founded Clyde & Co. said it hired a seven-lawyer insurance team to staff new offices in Phoenix, AZ, Denver, CO, and Las Vegas, NV, as part of a plan to build a U.S. insurance practice. (Insurance Business America)
• Alternative dispute resolution services provider JAMS said retired New York State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman joined its panel in New York; Gibson Dunn named litigation partner Joshua Lipshutz as its first chief operations officer; solar energy firm Altus hired former IEX General Counsel Sophia Lee as its first chief legal officer. Lee started her career in 1996 at Paul, Weiss; General Motors said its executive vice president and general counsel Craig Glidden will add responsibility for global public policy to his roles, effective June 1. (Automotive World)

Technology

• Private equity firms are investing billions of dollars into legal tech, such as life cycle management and legal workflow companies. (Business Insider)