Wake Up Call: Ropes Wants Associates in Office Three Days a Week

In today’s column, federal courts are seeing an increase in Covid-related employment claims; corporate Japan has seen a huge increase in the number and size of its legal departments in the last decade; and New York’s midlevel appeals court in Brooklyn seated its first-ever all African American panel of judges.

• Leading off, Ropes & Gray is the latest Big Law firm to require associates to spend at least three days in the office per week, as firms try to get back to normal after two years of working remotely during the pandemic. In a memo announcing the “anchor days” policy, which takes effect Oct. 3, Ropes Chair Julie Jones said associates “who do not spend at least three days a week in the office are not getting the full experience of being a Ropes & Gray lawyer.” (Above The Law)
• Covid-related employment claims are increasing in federal courts, a report says. (Law.com) Meanwhile, labor lawyers in France say they’re being flooded in M&A-related work. (Law.com International)
• Corporate Japan in the past paid little mind to its small in-house legal departments. But in the last decade, the country’s number of in-house lawyers has soared. This report attributes the growth to an effort by companies to establish a global reporting line connecting foreign and domestic legal offices. (Law.com International)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Cleary Gottlieb counseled the underwriters in the $1.7 billion initial public offering of Corebridge Financial Inc., the life and retirement subsidiary of American International Group, Inc.; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher advised Finalsite, a website provider for K–12 schools, on its acquisition of the Blackboard K–12 Community Engagement division of edtech company Anthology. Milbank advised Anthology. Finalsite said the acquisition creates a leading global provider in the K–12 digital marketing and communications software field. Terms were not disclosed; Goodwin advised a group of investors in a 75 million euro ($75 million) fund raise for French biotech firm SparingVision, which specializes in genomic medicines for eye treatments. (Le Monde du Droit)
• New York’s Brooklyn-based Second Department Appellate Division—the state’s highest volume midlevel appeals court—this month seated its first all-African American panel of judges to hear oral arguments. (New York Law Journal)
• Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights urged state and local governments to open criminal investigations into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ transport of dozens of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. (MassLive.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Honigman said it brought back real estate attorney Jonathan Block, who earlier spent 23 years at the firm, including as co-chair of its retail practice group. Block, who returns as a partner in Bloomfield Hill, Michigan, spent about a year as general counsel at real estate management firm Elia Group; Littler employment attorney Iriz Lozano moved to Sherman & Howard in Denver; Lewis Brisbois hired toxic tort litigators Stephen M. Capriotti Jr. and Liza Stagliano as partners in Philadelphia; global investigations firm Nardello & Co. launched a Los Angeles office led by Managing Director Amie Chang, who was an intelligence analyst for the US Department of Defense. (Nardello & Co)

Technology

• Nixon Peabody said it launched an updated website as part of a broader digital and brand transformation. The update aims to make it easier for users to find their preferred content with fewer clicks from any device, the firm said. (Nixon Peabody)