Wake Up Call: More Firms Set Office-Return Policies

In today’s column, Sheppard Mullin announced bonuses for staff lawyers and special counsel; Working Mother released its annual listing of what it calls the country’s 50 best law firms for women; a former litigation manager at Tesla and Apple joined a self-driving-tech startup as top lawyer.

• Leading off, transatlantic firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner said it expects lawyers and staff to be in-office for the majority of their working hours in its 30 offices worldwide starting Sept. 6; Hogan Lovells said it expects most of its London staff to spend at least 60% of the work week in-office once it starts bringing employees back in mid-September; Philadelphia-based Cozen O’Connor said it plans to test a hybrid work schedule starting after Labor Day. The plan allows attorneys to continue to choose when to come into the office, while staff who want to keep working remote will have to follow set schedules. According to a report, Cozen plans to test the plan until Dec. 31, after which it will decide on what to change. (Philadelphia Business Journal)
• More firms announced associate pay hikes that echo, not always exactly, the standard set by Davis Polk, which runs from $202,500 to $365,000 per year, depending on year of seniority. Delaware litigation firm Ross Aronstam & Moritz, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Shearman & Sterling, Orrick, Arnold & Porter, and Haynes and Boone all announced raises; Sheppard Mullin announced “special recognition bonuses” for special counsel and staff attorneys equal to 8% of their annual salaries and payable in November. (Above the Law)
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will resume in-person arguments at the end of August, after over a year of pandemic-related remote hearings. (BLAW) Some federal judges say they’re likely to continue doing virtual interviews of judicial clerkship candidates. (Law.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Working Mother released its latest listing of 50 law firms it says “encourage women to rise to the top.” (Seramount 2021 Best Law Firms for Women) Female lawyers say strict dress codes applied to them when they visit courts and prisons have a negative impact on their work. (Business Insider)
• An American Hong Kong-based former compliance lawyer for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Samuel Bickett, was sentenced to prison over his intervention in 2019 to stop the beating of a teenager, according to reports. (WaPo) Illinois attorney disciplinary authorities filed charges alleging a former Big Law insurance associate falsely billed over 2,000 pro bono hours to get a $12,000 bonus. (Reuters)
• Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr said it launched a video series of eSports and video gaming experts; Baker McKenzie said it moved to a new office in Los Angeles. (BakerMcKenzie.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Mayer Brown ‘s New York office brought in three investment fund lawyers as partners in its corporate & securities practice. Marina Besignano joined from Fried Frank, Tim Clark from Dechert, and Javier Fierro from Sidley Austin; Jenner & Block got Steptoe energy and commercial litigator Laurie Edelstein as a partner in its new San Francisco office; Dechert executive compensation attorney Eric Rubin moved to Holland & Knight’s corporate, M&A and securities practice group as a partner in Philadelphia. (HKLaw.com)
• Troutman Pepper named its transactional department practice director, Sona Spencer, to be the firm’s first chief legal talent officer starting July 1; Quarles & Brady added transactional tax attorney Kevin Halloran in Indianapolis as a partner in its business law practice group. (Quarles.com)
• A former litigation chief at Tesla and Apple Inc., Lynn Miller joined self-driving truck tech startup Plus as general counsel, based in Cupertino, Calif. She’s was a Pillsbury partner earlier in her career. (Businesswire) San Francisco-based Union Cannabis Group, Inc. hired former Barnes & Thornburg litigator Zach Heller as general counsel; used-car e-commerce company RumbleOn hired its outside counsel, Akerman partner Michael Francis, to be its general counsel. Francis was chair of Akerman’s emerging growth companies practice. (Businesswire); a disagreement over legal strategy caused Carolyn Shellman, recently the chief legal officer and GC of CPS Energy, to quit the Texas-based utility with two deputies, according to a report. (San Antonio Express-News)

Technology

• A new German legal-tech law sets rules for lawyers’ contingency fees and litigation funding, as part of a series of reforms of the country’s legal services market.(PinsentMasons.com)