Wake Up Call: Sidley to Help Associates Add Business Cred

In today’s column, Buchalter is the latest Big Law firm to open in Salt Lake City, while Holland & Knight opened an office in Richmond, Virginia; legal tech company Priori partnered with Orrick, Hearst, and others on a new database tool to help in-house departments choose their outside lawyers.

• Leading off, as law firms look for ways to hold on to their young talent, Sidley Austin said it’s launching a new program that will allow associates to hone their business expertise and leadership skills and build their credentials. Starting Jan. 1, 2022, the program, available to associates in their fourth to eighth years, will pay for participants to get “MBA-level” training at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern. Participants can earn the titles “managing associate” and “senior managing associate,” the firm said. (Sidley.com)
• Another result of Big Law’s war for legal talent is that firms are finding that fear as a management strategy is losing its effectiveness, a report says. (American Lawyer)
• Buchalter is the latest law firm opening in Salt Lake City, Utah, attracted by its growing tech industry and available legal talent. The Los Angeles-headquartered firm said it hired seven lawyers, including three real estate shareholders, and four professional staff including paralegals and two law clerks, from a local firm to open the new outpost. It also said it’s “actively” looking for larger space in the city. (Buchalter) Buchalter’s move into Salt Lake follows Wilson Sonsini earlier in November, Foley & Lardner in October, and Kirkland & Ellis in September. (BLAW) Holland & Knight said it opened an office in downtown Richmond, Virginia, with a team of four attorneys who previously worked in the firm’s office in Tysons. (HKLaw.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Miami-Dade Chief Circuit Judge Nushin G. Sayfie said the county courthouse, which closed in July because of the pandemic, will reopen to the public on Dec. 6. (Daily Business Review)
• Quinn Emanuel told the U.S. Justice Department in regulatory filings that it expects to expand its representation of Ukraine in a $3 billion bond dispute with Russia. (Reuters) Proskauer Rose lawyers for movie studio Miramax filed a California copyright suit against director Quentin Tarantino over his plan to sell non-fungible tokens of scenes from his film Pulp Fiction. (BLAW) Rap artists Travis Scott and Drake were named in a new $750 million lawsuit over the Astroworld festival disaster in Houston. (Yahoo! Entertainment)
• A former Oklahoma judge admitted to consensual “sexual conduct” with a prosecutor but he said it didn’t affect his “neutrality” in a murder case she was involved in. The prosecutor had a different take. (ABA Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Former Federal Trade Commission Counsel Ben Rossen joined Baker Botts in Washington as special counsel for antitrust/privacy; Orrick poached Fried, Frank debt finance specialist Adam Ross as a partner in Washington; Mayer Brown brought in Baker McKenzie trusts and estates partner David Berek as a partner in Chicago; Barnes & Thornburg grabbed Kirkland & Ellis intellectual property trial partner Megan New in Chicago; Duane Morris recruited IP partners Timothy Shannon and Seth Coburn in Boston. They join from Verrill Dana; Proskauer hired Greenberg Traurig health-care shareholder Whitney Magee Phelps as a partner in New York. (Proskauer)
• Bressler, Amery & Ross’s New York office added real estate and cannabis law attorney Harrison A. Kaufman as counsel. It also added corporate and securities attorney Jorge Campos as counsel. (Bressler.com) Gordon & Rees hired veteran insurance litigator Thierry Barkley as a partner in Reno, Nevada. (GRSM.com)
• American Agricultural Insurance Company said its general counsel and secretary, Andrew Boris, will take over as the firm’s executive vice president and chief executive officer from Janet Katz, who’s set to retire April 1, 2022. (Reinsurance News)

Technology

• Legal tech company Priori launched Scout, a new database tool aimed at helping in-house legal departments choose outside counsel and monitor their performance. Priori said Orrick, media giant Hearst, professional services firm Marsh McLennan, medical device company Zimmer Biomet, are on Scout’s advisory board and helped develop the tool. More than 30 law firms have agreed to join the platform, Priori said. (Priori Legal)