Wake Up Call: Miami Dolphins Top Lawyer Scores Judgeship

In today’s column, corporate executives say they’re outsourcing legal tech and compliance work more to legal tech providers than law firms; European private equity firms are expanding their in-house legal teams, so their outside counsel have to adapt; Norton Rose hired two co-leaders for its legal managed services offering for Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

• Leading off, Miami Dolphins top lawyer Marcus Bach Armas has won a seat as a judge on Miami-Dade County court after no challengers applied to face him in judicial elections. He’ll resign his job as senior director of legal and government affairs for the National Football League team and Hard Rock Stadium on June 30, this report says. (Daily Business Review)
• As corporate executives outsource more of their legal, research, technology, and compliance work, they’re turning to legal tech providers more than to international or national law firms, a Wolters Kluwer survey finds. (WoltersKluwer.com)
• Norton Rose Fulbright grabbed two London-based partners from Ernst & Young to co-lead and enhance the firm’s legal managed services offering for Europe, Middle East and Asia. Norton Rose said partners Alex Fortescue-Webb and Daniel Marks, who were both leaders in Thomson Reuters legal managed services unit acquired by EY in 2019, will focus on building tech-enabled managed services solutions to help in-house legal departments deliver work and strategic projects more effectively. (NortonRoseFulbright.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• European private equity firms are building their in-house legal teams and consequently the advice they want from their outside counsel is evolving. (Law.com International)
• A Colorado Court of Appeals restricted contractual terms that some law firms use to discourage departing lawyers from taking clients with them. (Law.com)
• Miami-based Greenspoon Marder launched a national Latin America practice group that it said advises inbound and outbound international clients on cross-border opportunities. (GMLaw.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Willkie Farr & Gallagher poached Simpson Thacher & Bartlett intellectual property and privacy attorney Genevieve Dorment, as a partner in New York; Mayer Brown recruited Perkins Coie data privacy and cybersecurity partner Arsen Kourinian in Los Angeles; Milbank hired CFIUS and foreign investment review attorney John Beahn in Washington as a partner. He joins from Shearman & Sterling, where he was head of the firm’s practice focused on the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and foreign direct investment; DLA Piper said Morrison & Foerster life sciences and health tech partner Bethany Hills joined DLA as a partner in New York and as vice chair of its Food and Drug Administration practice; Cozen O’Connor snagged veteran real estate litigator and dispute resolution attorney Scott Pashman as a member in New York, where the real estate market is “hot.” (Cozen.com)
• Proskauer Rose said it hired its first private credit partner in Chicago, Evan Palenschat, bolstering its work with asset managers in the Midwest. He was a partner at King & Spalding; White & Case private equity partner Richard Jones said he was appointed to take over from partner Ken Barry as head of the firm’s London private equity team; White & Case grabbed DLA Piper white collar crime and investigations partner Daniel Zapf in Frankfurt, Germany; Baker McKenzie Italia hired Deloitte tax attorney and chartered accountant Pamela Floriani as counsel in Milan. (BakerMcKenzie.com)
• Barnes & Thornburg brought in former Dow AgroSciences top lawyer and executive, Ken Isley, also a former U.S. Agriculture Department administrator, as a corporate partner based in Indianapolis and also spending time in Washington. He was recently executive vice president, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary at crop intelligence company InteLinair; Calix, a cloud and software platform provider to communication services, hired former Cisco executive and in-house leader Doug McNitt as executive vice president and general counsel. (Calix.com)

Technology

• Paladin, a Chicago-based pro bono legal technology platform, said it raised $8 million in a new funding round led by World Within and has raised $12 million to date. Mark Cuban is among its other backers. (Chicago Inno)