Wake Up Call: Snap Hires Munger Tolles Partner as New GC

• Snapchat’s parent company already has a new general counsel to replace the departing Chris Handman. The company is said to have hired Michael O’Sullivan, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, the firm where Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s father, John Spiegel is a partner. Sullivan specializes in corporate and securities matters and has represented giants such as Google Inc. and Bank of America. ( The Recorder ) ( Business Insider )

• Debevoise & Plimpton and Kirkland & Ellis advised in Discovery Communications’ acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive. The deal, worth $11.9 billion to $14.6 billion, depending on whom you ask, could make deal-making easier for cable TV attorneys, especially overseas, but it’s not clear it will help at home. ( New York Times DealBook , National Law Journal )

• Anthony Scaramucci was fired as White House communications chief after 10 days on the job, and Harvard Law School’s latest alumni directory listed him as “dead.” ( Washington Post ) Was the latter payback for “embarrassing” the school? If “The Mooch” hunts for a new job, he could tap into a network of his classmates from school, many of which have prominent jobs. ( Above the Law , National Law Journal )

• A female partner suing Proskauer Rose for gender discrimination is urging a Washington, D.C., federal judge not to toss her complaint, arguing she should be classified as an employee of the firm. ( BLB )

• In the 18 months since Chicago firm Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP was formed from 22 partners splitting off from Schiff Hardin, it has grown to 66 lawyers, including over 30 partners and projected revenue for 2017 of between $36 and $40 million. This is not a “mom and pop” operation, says Patricia Brown Holmes, the firm’s co-managing partner. BLB recently caught up with Holmes, soon after the firm’s hire of a minority-led group of 11 attorneys, from Bryan Cave and Schiff Hardin. ( BLB )

Law Firm Business

• Cooley LLP signed a deal to move its New York headquarters to 55 Hudson Yards, in 130,000 square feet (12,000 square meters) across five floors near the top of a skyscraper under construction on Manhattan’s far West Side. It joins Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP and Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP in the building. ( Bloomberg via BLB )

• Eversheds Sutherland opened a fourth office in Germany after acquiring Düsseldorf-based firm Grooterhorst & Partners. ( The Lawyer )

• U.K. firm Slaughter and May is advising British American Tobacco in a corruption investigation by the country’s Serious Fraud Office. ( The Lawyer )

Legal Market

• Cross-border mergers and acquisitions will continue to be strong for the rest of 2017, and could be boosted if the Trump administration gains ground on its pro-business agenda, deal attorneys say. ( Bloomberg via BLB )

• Wells Fargo & Co. faces another fraud lawsuit. This time customers are accusing the bank of forcing them to pay for unnecessary auto insurance that drove some of them so far into a financial spiral that their vehicles were repossessed. ( Bloomberg via BLB )

• Big Law has an alcoholism problem, linked to a culture of work-related drinking. ( Business Insider )

The Trump Administration

• Former presidential campaign manager Corey Lewandowski urged the Trump administration on Sunday to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a sign that Republicans are stepping up attacks on the agency that’s targeted Wall Street conduct. ( Bloomberg via BLB )

• Despite Trump’s frequent and public criticism of the H-1B visa program, new data show applicants are undeterred. ( Bloomberg ) New data from the program show IT outsourcers hire a lot but pay very little. ( Quartz.com )

Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts

• The U.S. Supreme Court is getting mixed reviews for its website update, which was supposed to make it easier for the public to find information about the court on mobile devices and computers. ( National Law Journal )

• Does the court’s “third-party doctrine” --the idea that the Fourth Amendment does not protect records or information that someone voluntarily shares with someone or something else--apply to information held by cellphone companies in the digital age? That question is at the heart of Carpenter v. United States, for which justices will hear oral arguments this fall. ( SCOTUS Blog )

• A federal judge struck down an Alabama law that empowered judges to put minors seeking abortions through a trial-like proceeding in which the fetus could get a lawyer and prosecutors could object to the pregnant girl’s wishes. ( Associated Press via Bloomberg )

Laterals, Moves, Law Firm Work

• Baker McKenzie hired finance banking practice partner Geoff O’Dea, who left Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer several months ago. He is joining Baker’s finance practice in London in September, with Matthew Smith, who joins as a partner from U.K. firm Travers Smith, where he was senior counsel. Baker McKenzie is also getting Morrison & Foerster counsel Sue McLean, who joins its technology group as a partner. ( The Lawyer )

Legal Education

• As the number of law graduates continues to decline, and more graduates take jobs that don’t require a law degree, some law school deans are trying to embrace the change. They have launched programs that train students in technology and other areas outside of law. ( BLB )

Technology

• GE Healthcare is finding automation of its legal operations function to be a big challenge. Vice President and General Counsel Laura O’Donnell said the company’s in-house lawyers have been wrestling with how legal processes tailored for specific needs can be made “repeatable and automated without losing the good analysis that we are known for as a profession.” ( Bloomberg BNA via BLB )

• Apple Inc. and Google removed over 300 so-called binary trading applications from their online stores after intervention by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, the commission said. ( Bloomberg )

• HBO said it was hacked and that some of its programming was stolen, while alleged hackers claim they took text related to the Game of Thrones series. ( Entertainment Weekly )

• For years self-styled gumshoes have unearthed the names of soon-to-launch gadgets from Apple and other tech companies by searching trademark offices from Jamaica to Trinidad. That recently got a lot harder. ( Bloomberg )

• Alaska Airlines says it is taking precautions including requiring employees to change their passwords after a cyber attack on computer systems at Virgin America, which it acquired last year. ( AP via Bloomberg )

Miscellaneous

• Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff in Arizona lauded by conservatives for his crackdown on illegal immigration, was found guilty of criminal contempt. ( L.A. Times )

• Travel to North Korea will soon be illegal for U.S. citizens, but there may be exceptions. ( New York Times )

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.