Wake Up Call: Orrick Opens New Paris Office Space, Tech Studio

In today’s column, remote stream problems during a trial didn’t violate a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights, a federal court ruled; Amber Heard’s lawyers asked a judge to void Johnny Depp’s multi-million dollar verdict against her; and Russia’s invasion led to a slowdown in EU trademark filing, a report says.

• Leading off, Orrick has moved its 100-plus lawyer Paris branch to new office space on the rue des Belles Feuilles in the former headquarters of French cement and construction materials group Lafarge, according to a French-language report. The firm remodeled the premises to create a modern hybrid environment focused on “working together.” Orrick also opened a second Paris office, a tech studio in the city’s Silicon Sentier area, the report says. (Le Monde du Droit)
• Livestreaming problems during a criminal trial under Covid-19 pandemic protocols did not qualify as a court closure that affected the procedure’s fairness, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled. (New York Law Journal)
• Rebecca Maslen-Stannage, who last year became the first-ever female chair of 2,800-lawyer Anglo-Australian firm Herbert Smith Freehills, told the Financial Times that flexible working during the Covid pandemic motivated her to take the job. (Financial Times)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit consumer and business confidence and, consequently, caused a slowdown in trademark filing activity in the European Union, the executive director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office says in an interview. (World Trademark Review)
• Amber Heard’s attorneys asked a judge to toss the $10.35 million verdict she lost in the defamation case filed by her ex-husband Johnny Depp. (Associated Press)
• Entertainment technology company Imax Corp. has tentatively reached a settlement of a bias lawsuit filed by a former lawyer at the firm. The plaintiff claimed she was discriminated against because she is a Latina in her late 50s, a report says. (KFIam640.iheart.com)
• A Georgia judge violated a lawyer’s due process rights by ordering him jailed for contempt without a hearing, an appeals court ruled. (Daily Report Online)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Sidley Austin’s London office brought in private equity and M&A lawyer Tony Downes from Proskauer Rose. He’s had several in-house roles in the EU sports and sports betting industries, including as legal director of the International Boxing Association, World Series of Boxing, and the Ladies European Tour; Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner grabbed Brown Rudnick restructuring and insolvency lawyers Colin Ashford and Richard Obank in London. According his LinkedIn profile, Orbank was banking and corporate restructuring practice group leader in the UK at Brown Rudnick. Ashford and Obank both previously spent decades at DLA Piper; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer appointed Dubai-based corporate partner Michael Hilton to take over from corporate partner Pervez Akhtar as the firm’s regional managing partner for the Middle East and North Africa. (Freshfields.com)
• Michael Best Strategies picked up Dentons senior policy director Polly Lawrence as a principal in Denver; general counsel for technology at UK telecom group BT Chris Fowler announced he left the company, where was he also a non-executive director. (LinkedIn.com) Amber Group, a Singapore headquartered global digital asset platform, hired in-house veteran Benjamin Bai as chief legal officer. A former Jones Day and Allen & Overy partner Bai joins recently from Chinese tech giant Ant Group, where he was vice president, chief intellectual property, and international litigation counsel; French biopharmaceutical company Pharnext hired health sector in-house attorney Antoine Gravelle as general counsel. He’s worked at Sanfoi and Cellectis and was recently vice president, legal affairs, at OSE Immunotherapeutics. (Accesswire.com)

Technology

• Lawtech 365, U.K.-based parent company of a biometrics-based identity verification platform for the legal sector, said it closed its seed funding round for technology development. (Biometric Update)