Wake Up Call: Litigators, Courts Strain to Clear Up Case Backlog

In today’s column, World Wresting Entertainment Inc. replaced its general counsel for the second time in less than a year; dozens of Big Law firms haven’t matched the Cravath scale for associate pay, a legal blog reports; UC Irvine School of Law hired a new dean.

• Leading off, some litigators and court staff say they are having a tough time catching up on cases and keeping up with a flood of deadlines and procedures that have backed up because of pandemic delays. (Law.com)
• A legal blog listed dozens of Big Law firms it says have not yet matched the Cravath scale for associate pay. (Above The Law)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• The U.K. legal profession regulator is paying visits to law firms whose names pop up in Parliament’s discussions about compliance with Russian sanctions and money laundering regulations. (Law.com International)
• Fintech company Array, valued at $1.5 billion ahead of a fund raise last year, is getting sued by its former chief strategy officer, who accuses the company of deceiving investors sell credit data to “shady” operators. (Business Insider)
• University of California, Irvine, School of Law said it has hired veteran law school professor and leader Austen Parrish to become its new dean starting Aug. 3. Parrish has been dean at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law since 2014. (UCI Law)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Norton Rose Fulbright grabbed longtime Covington & Burling U.K. and EU competition attorney Miranda Cole as a partner on its antitrust and competition team in Brussels; Holland & Knight said former energy industry M&A and corporate finance in-house counsel Waajid Siddiqui joined the firm as a partner in New York. He arrives from Shearman & Sterling; DLA Piper recruited former U.S. government data protection, privacy and cybersecurity official James Sullivan as a partner in Washington in its regulatory and government affairs practice. Sullivan was recently deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Commerce Department and lead an International Trade Administration digital services unit; DLA also added corporate attorney Daniel Cole as a partner in Chicago in its finance practice. (DLAPiper.com)
• New Jersey cannabis law adviser Fruqan Mouzon joined Fox Rothschild in Morristown. He’s a former general counsel for the New Jersey State Senate Majority Office and arrives recently from McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter; Womble Bond Dickinson brought back energy industry attorney Shawan Gillians as capital markets of counsel in Charleston, South Carolina. Gillians, who was an associate at legacy firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, returns after close to 11 years in-house at public power provider Santee Cooper. (WombleBondDickinson.com)
• Discovery Communications general counsel Savalle Sims will stay on as top lawyer of soon-to-be merged company Warner Bros. Discovery, a report says. Meanwhile, WarnerMedia’s GC Jim Meza was among top executives pushed out. (Los Angeles Times); Media and entertainment group World Wresting Entertainment Inc. hired Caterpillar Inc. deputy general counsel Elisebeth Collins, as its new general counsel & corporate secretary. Collins was earlier lead counsel at The Boeing Company and counsel at WilmerHale. The Stamford, Connecticut-based WWE’s previous top lawyer, former Cravath attorney Samira Shah, left WWE after only about 10 months on the job; Rocket Lab USA, Inc., a Long Beach, California-based launch and space systems company, said former General Dynamics Land Systems top lawyer Arjun Kampani starts as its senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary on April 11. He was recently SVP and legal department leader at Aerojet Rocketdyne. (Businesswire)

Technology

• Edelson PC said it spent about 100 hours working on its new Disney-inspired parody video about class action claims rates. (Reuters)