Wake Up Call: Some Firms Try to Hide Talent From Hot Market

In today’s column, a big Australian firm hiked salaries 15% for all its lawyers; plaintiffs firms are using mass arbitration to take on companies that block class actions by consumers and employees; lawsuits are piling up in the wake of the crowd surge that killed at least eight people at the Astroworld Festival in Houston.

• Leading off, some law firms desperate to hold onto their talent in a hot lateral market are trying to hide lawyers from the competition. Some try to keep lawyers off LinkedIn or other kinds of networking while one firm even wanted to remove associates’ bios from its web site. (American Lawyer)
• In Australia, the talent shortage has spurred several firms to hike lawyers’ pay. The latest, big firm Gadens, reportedly raised lawyers’ salaries by 15%. (Law.com International)
• Miami’s Wynwood district used to be known for old warehouses, but now it’s attracting new businesses, food trucks, and boutique law firms. (Daily Business Review) As Atlanta law firms adapt to hybrid workplaces and other post-pandemic changes, some are contributing to an extremely busy real estate market. (Daily Report)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Many big companies today force consumers and employees to agree to individual arbitration to resolve disputes, blocking class actions. But using technology to combine complaints into so-called mass arbitration, a handful of plaintiffs law firms have found a way to win big settlements for their clients. (Business Insider)
• Attorneys and staff at Big Law firms contributed almost six times more to Democratic challenger Joe Biden than to incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to a new study. (Reuters)
• Lawsuits are piling up and criminal charges are possible after the deadly crowd surge that killed at least eight people during a concert by rapper Travis Scott at Houston’s Astroworld Festival . (ABCNews.go.com) (Rolling Stone)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Cooley recruited former Treasury Department senior counsel Bridget Reineking in Washington as special counsel in its international trade group. She has expertise on matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS); Wiley Rein promoted Washington-based partner Jennifer Hindin, head of the space and satellite group and executive and management committee member, to co-chair of the firm’s busy telecom, media, and technology practice, effective Jan. 1, 2022. She’s taking over from former U.S. ambassador David Gross, who continues as a partner. The practice’s other co-chair is Kathleen Kirby; Cozen O’Connor brought in Seyfarth Shaw health-care litigator James Billings-Kang as a member in Washington. (Cozen.com)
• Goodwin Procter appointed private equity, investment funds, and public company partners to be the new co-chairs of its environmental, social, and governance & impact practice; Stroock hired veteran Perkins Coie energy, infrastructure finance lawyers John F. Pierce and Jason Kuzma as corporate partners in Seattle. At Perkins Coie, Pierce co-chaired the clean technology industry group and headed the carbon-related and hydrogen practices; Hunton Andrews Kurth snagged Hogan Lovells project finance lawyer Sean Conaty as a partner on its energy and infrastructure team in Tokyo; Covington & Burling got Japan specialist Taisuke (Tai) Kimoto as a corporate partner and co-head of the firm’s Japan initiative based in Los Angeles. He was previously a partner at Pillsbury; King & Spalding grabbed Jones Day global disputes partner Dave Wallach in San Francisco. (KSLaw.com)
• Politico reported that the Blockchain Association, a top cryptocurrency industry trade group, hired Jake Chervinsky, the former general counsel at Compound Labs to be executive vice president and head of policy. The association also hired Dave Grimaldi, recently top lobbyist for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, to be executive VP and head of government relations; Los Angeles-based cannabis company Shryne Group, Inc. hired former Walt Disney Company deputy chief counsel Cary Berger as chief legal officer at in Los Angeles. Berger, a former Irell & Manella partner and Broadcom, Inc. in-house leader, was most recently general counsel and chief administrative officer at Houseplant, a cannabis brand founded by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. (Businesswire)

Legal Education

• Leaders of the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election recently taught a short course on the probe for a group of third-year University of Virginia law students. (Law.Virginia.edu)