Wake Up Call: Hundreds Laid Off at Baker McKenzie as AI Grows

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

• Baker McKenzie is laying off up to a tenth of its global business services workforce as part of a reorganization driven in part by its increased use of AI. The firm is cutting “dozens of roles in London and Belfast” and hundreds of others “across the firm including in their offshore centers,” across functions including know-how, research, marketing, secretarial, according to people familiar to the matter. (RollOnFriday)
• Littleton Chambers suspended UK barrister Matthieu de Boisséson pending an investigation after documents showed he exchanged emails over several years with Jeffrey Epstein and Jean-Luc Brunel, the modeling agent accused of procuring underaged girls for Epstein. The files include invitations to social meetings, photographs, and evidence that de Boisséson acted as an informal mediator in a legal dispute between Epstein and Brunel. (The Telegraph)
• Femi Cadmus, who was fired last month as Yale Law School’s law librarian, says her termination was unlawful and retaliatory, disputing claims that poor staff morale justified her dismissal. Cadmus argues that Yale treated her role as a tenured faculty position and said she was improperly given just two weeks’ notice. (Yale Daily News)
• Davidoff Hutcher & Citron bankruptcy partner Jonathan Pasternak was suspended from SDNY for three years after telling the court he introduced a debtor client to a realty investor but failed to tell the client or court that the investor paid him a six-figure finder’s fee. (Law.com)
• Manhattan Rep. Dan Goldman said he’s returning $2,000 in cash from Brad Karp amid revelations of Karp’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. (Politico)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Molly Unterseher joined Greenberg Traurig as a shareholder in its tax-exempt organizations and philanthropy practice in Philadelphia and New York. She joins from Nixon Peabody.
• Helen Christakos joined Norton Rose Fulbright as a partner in its global privacy and cybersecurity group in San Francisco. She joins from A&O Shearman.
• Cynthia Cole joined Alston & Bird as a partner in its technology and privacy group in Silicon Valley.