Wake Up Call: International Law Firms Emerging in ‘Panama Papers’ Leak

• International law firms including Simmons & Simmons and Holman Fenwick Willan were among organizations, national leaders and politicians named in a growing tax-avoidance scandal linked to a massive leak of data already dubbed the “Panama Papers” documents. (The Lawyer)

• Cravath, Swaine & Moore rarely loses partners to competitors, but on Friday it lost a prominent one , when Scott Barshay, among the country’s most active M&A lawyers, joined Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, which created a new title for him, as part of an effort to expand its corporate practice.(Big Law Business)

• The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to scrutinize the West Coast market for pre-IPO securities, the SEC’s top enforcement officer said at a recent event held by Stanford’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance and the SEC’s San Francisco regional office. (The Recorder)

• The recent collapse of insurance law firm Parabis, the first UK firm to take private-equity backing, and the recent problems of Australian-listed firm Slater & Gordon, have led many to doubt that law firms can survive in the current market after accepting private equity backing. (The Lawyer)

Legal Market

• The consortium of investigative journalists behind the Panama files leak said they show that politicians, criminals and celebrities worldwide have used banks and shadow companies to hide their assets, while TechCrunch called it the Internet’s biggest ever leak of documents, at some 2.6 terabytes. (Bloomberg News/Tech Crunch)

• The director of Mossack Fonseca , the Panama law firm at the center of the scandal, denied any wrongdoing and said his firm was the victim “an international campaign against privacy.” (New York Times/Reuters)

• The leak has already spurred a tax-evasion investigation in Australia, and the UK and New Zealand say they also plan to investigate. (Financial Times)

• The U.S. legal sector gained 1,200 jobs in March, according to preliminary data released Friday from the Bureau of Labor, which also released revised data for February, indicating the sector has gained jobs in the year’s first three months. (Big Law Business)

• A Manhattan judge threw out a lawsuit that charged Baker & McKenzie and client Yahoo Inc. with racketeering and fraud in an alleged conspiracy to bribe a Mexican judge to reverse a $2.7 billion judgment. (American Lawyer)

• DLA Piper said it has ended its formal relationship with Venezuelan firm InterJuris but will continue to use the services of the Caracas-based firm, for its clients with a presence in the region. (Big Law Business)

• Talking to BLB, Stanley Sporkin , the former federal judge who helped start the careers of a several securities lawyers when he was at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, reflected on his career in an interview in which also discussed retirement. (Big Law Business)

SCOTUS

• In cases last week, the eight-member U.S. Supreme Court dealt with complications left by the absence of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Meanwhile, political turmoil roiled over confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nomination to succeed Scalia, Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. (National Law Journal)

• Democrats in the Senate are making “halting” progress in their efforts to force the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee to abandon their refusal to hold hearings on the Garland nomination. (Politico)

• History suggests that whoever does end up replacing Scalia on the court may not have as great of an impact on its ideological balance as some hope for or fear, depending on their viewpoint, writes an observer. (Washington Post)

Laterals and Moves

• UK-based Simmons & Simmons said it has expanded its financial markets practice in Singapore by hiring Matthew Cox as a partner away from the Singapore office of Dentons. (Simmons & Simmons)

A list of M&A deals that Cravath lawyers have advised on, not including those Barshay advised during his 25 years at Cravath, including some of the world’s biggest. (Big Law Business)

• Recent lateral hires and moves at Dechert, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and others. (American Lawyer)

• Eight significant legal tech job moves that happened in March, one of the biggest recent months for such moves. (Legaltech news)

• Atlanta-based King & Spalding said it expanded its life sciences practices by hiring away three Hunton & Williams Washington-based partners, including the head of that firm’s life sciences practices and the co-chairman of its U.S. Food and Drug Administration practice. (Big Law Business)

Technology

• A federal judge Friday stunned lawyers for ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc., by unearthing a 60-year-old precedent that could undermine a key part of their defense against charges by two unnamed women that they were sexually assaulted by Uber drivers. (The Recorder)

• A privacy and data security lawyer recommends eight steps for an organization to prepare for dealing with federal and state law enforcement and regulators after a cyber attack, and how to deal with them after such attacks happen. (Big Law Business)

• Video: Shira A. Scheindlin, who is retiring as a judge on the U.S. Court for the New York Southern District, and Jason R. Baron, of the information governance and eDiscovery Group at Drinker Biddle & Reath, discuss technology’s impact on the practice of law. (Big Law Business)

• An increasing number of companies are including cloud storage as part of their strategies for backing up company information, according to a recent survey by Kroll Ontrack (Legaltech news)

• To run the federal government’s first-ever bug bounty program, the U.S. Department of Defense has picked bug bounty and vulnerability coordination company HackerOne . (InformationWeek)

Legal Education

• A Harvard Law School student alleges that an anti-racism movement at the school is trampling on free speech rights of people whose viewpoints diverge from its priorities. (The Observer )

Miscellaneous

• April 1:Global giant Dentons expands into space. (Business of Law)