Wake Up Call: Orrick, Cahill Announce Year-End Bonuses

In today’s column, several law firms are advising in a $3.9 billion merger to create the world’s biggest cannabis company; a new Freshfields M&A report describes a roller coaster 2020 leading to “tail winds” for deal making next year; the litigator leading Texas’ antitrust action against Google says he’s not in it for the money.

• Leading off, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe said it’s paying up to a total of $180,000 in bonuses to associates in 2020, depending on their year of seniority and with a 1,950 billable-hour threshold to get the full amount. There are several components to the total. First, Orrick said it’s matching Cravath’s two-part scale combining the Baker McKenzie scale with the Davis Polk scale for special Covid bonuses, for a total $140,000. It’s also offering an “overmarket” bonus of $3,750 to $25,000, and, to top things off, a special 2020 Award bonus of up to $15,000, also with a billable-hour requirement. The firm is also giving special bonuses to career associates, its analytics team, and its paralegals, a report says. (American Lawyer) (Above the Law)
• Cahill Gordon & Reindel’s bonus announcement got mixed reactions. The firm matches the Cravath scale overall and also offers special bonuses, but those tilt toward mid-level and and senior associates, offering up to $100,000 for associates who started in 2012 and 2013. Cahill’s scale is less generous for junior associates, some of whom expressed their disappointment to legal blog Above the Law. (Above the Law)
• With Covid-19 forcing lawyers to work remotely, a statement by John Quinn, founder and leader of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, that his firm will consider hiring partners regardless of whether they live in a city where the firm has an office, got attention. But it’s not likely that a lot of firms will be following Quinn’s lead, observers said. (American Lawyer)
• Meanwhile, the American Bar Association said in an opinion this week that lawyers can work remotely in jurisdictions where they’re not licensed, as long as they only engage in law they’re authorized to practice. (BLAW)
• With Covid infections surging to new records, New York’s court system is taking a hard look at grand juries. (New York Law Journal)
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s latest M&A Monitor report says that after a steep plunge in 2020’s first half, the M&A market made its biggest half-year rebound in history in the year’s second six months. For next year, “tail winds” are set to drive deal making, it says. (Freshfields.US)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Litigation financiers will face new competition from hedge funds, asset managers, and other market “disrupters” next year, a report says. (BLAW)
• Wiley Rein, Perkins Coie, and Holland & Knight are among law firms advising in Georgia on presidential and Senate-runoff related election matters. (Daily Report)
• U.K. lawyers are angry over what they perceive to be the government’s failure to protect the legal services sector during Brexit negotiations, a recent poll found. (Law.com International)
• Tom Girardi’s law firm Girardi Keese looks bound for bankruptcy after a judge froze its assets this week. (BLAW) Meanwhile, the firm, accused of failing to pay out $2 million in Boeing’s Lion Air crash settlement, earlier this year took out $1.5 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, with a promise to protect jobs, a report says. (The Recorder)
• Mark Lanier, the Houston litigator serving as lead counsel in an antitrust lawsuit that Texas and nine other states filed against Google yesterday, says he wants to “bust up” the search giant, but he’s not doing it for the money. (Texas Lawyer)
• The Hollywood Reporter’s 14th annual Power Lawyers breakfast featured a keynote talk with NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund president and director-counsel Sherrilyn Ifill. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Several law firms are advising in the merger of cannabis companies Tilray Inc. and Aphria Inc. in a deal expected to create the world’s largest cannabis company, valued at around $3.9 billion. Cooley and Canadian firm Blake, Cassels and Graydon are advising Tilray. DLA Piper US, DLA Piper Canada, and Canadian firm Fasken Martineau Dumoulin are advising Aphria. (Bloomberg News via BLAW) (New Cannabis Ventures)

Laterals, Moves, In-House

• Reed Smith hired financial technology partner Stephen A. Aschettino as a partner in New York. He arrives from Loeb & Loeb, where he was a partner and chair of the payments technology practice and co-lead of its blockchain and finTech teams. According to his LinkedIn profile, Aschettino earlier led the payments tech team at Foley & Lardner, where he was a partner, and he was executive vice president and general counsel of a technology company. (ReedSmith.com)
• Commercial litigator Michael Hayes, a longtime Philadelphia-based partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads, moved to construction boutique Horn Williamson to become its litigation chair. (Legal Intelligencer)
• Recently out of bankruptcy, American Tire Distributors hired in-house leader Carol Genis, a former K&L Gates partner who for three years led the legal department at Twentieth-Century Fox Television, as its new chief legal officer. (BLAW)

Promotions

• Winston & Strawn is promoting 13 attorneys (six women) to partner across five practice areas and six U.S. offices. (Winston.com)
• Sanford Heisler Sharp promoted eight lawyers (four women) to partner across four of its six offices. It promoted two lawyers, both women, to senior litigation counsel. The promotions are effective Jan. 1, 2021. (SanfordHeisler.com)

Technology

• As businesses increasingly face cyber threats, a Singapore law firm is hooking up with a cyber security vendor to offer integrated services including legal tech, e-discovery, digital forensics, and contract management. (ZDNet)
• Some lawyer marketplaces are releasing free tech tools and services to entice attorneys to join their platforms. (Legaltech News)
• An innovative rap album recorded from prison shines a light on exorbitant telephone charges that jail residents have to pay for calls. (ABAJournal)

Legal Education

• The overall 84% passage rate for New York’s first online bar exam in October was far higher than the rate for July’s in-person test, but only about half as many people took the October test. (BLAW)
• Columbia Law School announced that its Center for Chinese Legal Studies will be named in honor of the school’s first Chinese graduate, Hong Yen Chang, who graduated in 1886. (Law.Columbia.Edu)