Wake Up Call: Trump Lawsuit Against Banks Led by Longtime Giuliani Ally

• President Donald Trump, family members, and his company are suing in Manhattan federal court to block Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. from complying with congressional subpoenas for Trump bank records. It’s a move that ratchets up the president’s face-off with Democratic lawmakers investigating his finances. (BN) Trump is represented in the case by Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC and Mukasey Frenchman & Sklaroff LLP. (NYT) The second firm is a litigation boutique launched in March by longtime Rudy Giuliani ally Marc Mukasey, shortly after Mukasey left Greenberg Traurig, where he was global co-chair of the white-collar defense and special investigations practice. Like Giuliani, Mukasey’s a former federal prosecutor and was previously a partner at Texas-based Bracewell. (BLB) (BN)

• In the latest move in the fast-growing alternative legal services sector, U.K. elite firm Linklaters has launched its own lawyers on-demand service. The firm said the service, “Re:link,” is aimed at giving clients and practices access to expertise while giving lawyers with top level legal experience a way to network while staying flexible, according to a report. (Artificial Lawyer)

• Dechert grabbed Crowell & Moring antitrust litigator Shari Ross Lahlou as a partner in Washington. Lahlou, who was co-chair of Crowell’s antitrust group, was recently part of the team that represented AT&T in its trial victory over the Department of Justice in the $85 billion purchase of Time Warner. (Dechert.com) (Linkedin)

• The U.K. accounting regulator hit KPMG with a 6 million pound ($7.8 million) fine and a “severe reprimand” for misconduct, after an investigation into the firm’s audits of Lloyd’s Syndicate 218 (Equity Red Star). (FRC.org.uk)

• New York’s financial regulator hired former federal prosecutor Katherine A. Lemire to lead a newly created unit to oversee consumer protection and enforcement. (BLAW)

• McGuireWoods and its public affairs subsidiary McGuireWoods Consulting launched a national team to advise clients on investments and development of opportunity zones, which were created by the 2017 Trump tax law overhaul and give “investors, lenders and real estate developers a way to defer and avoid taxes while helping economically distressed areas.” (Mwcllc.com) Margaret Anadu, the head of Goldman Sachs’s Urban Investment Group, talked about the zones recently, in a podcast. (Bloomberg Tax)

• New data from the American Bar Association show the law school graduate class of 2018 had the highest legal employment rate in a decade. But the increase in jobs was small, and the number of law graduates competing for jobs shrank, according to a report. (Law.com)

• Amazon is looking to hire in-house counsel at its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. (Corporate Counsel)

Lawyers, Law Firms, Deals

• The acting official in the Justice Department’s No. 3 job, Jesse Panuccio, is resigning Friday to return to the private sector. (National Law Journal)

• Three of the biggest law firm mergers last year were in Texas. (TexasLawyer.com)

• Sullivan & Worcester, a Boston-based commercial legal services firm that has nearly 200 attorneys across its headquarters, and London, New York, Tel Aviv, and Washington offices, said it has rebranded as “Sullivan” and also has a new website URL. (Sullivanlaw.com)

• Hogan Lovells added a former U.S. assistant attorney, Ann C. Kim, in L.A. as a partner in its litigation practice. According to her LinkedIn, Kim, also a former SEC senior counsel, spent six years at O’Melveny & Myers. (HoganLovells.com) Hogan Lovells also said it officially moved its New York office, which has over 350 employees, to 390 Madison Avenue, from its previous premises at 875 Third Avenue. (HoganLovells.com)

Laterals, Moves, Promotions

• King & Spalding said finance and restructuring lawyer Peter Montoni, a former associate general counsel at Antares Capital, joined the firm in New York as a partner in its corporate, finance and investments practice group. Montoni spent over nine years as senior and executive counsel at GE Capital, and was earlier an associate in the finance and financial restructuring departments at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. (KSLaw.com)

• Goodwin added two new partners to its West Coast offices. Financial structuring partner Nathan A. Schultz joined in San Francisco from Fox Rothschild, and intellectual property partner Sanjeet Dutta joined the firm’s technology practice in Silicon Valley, arriving from Steptoe & Johnson LLP. (Goodwinlaw.com)

• BakerHostetler hired life sciences-focused intellectual property lawyer Toni-Junell Herbert as a partner in Washington. She was previously at Dinsmore & Shohl. (BakerLaw.com)

• Quarles & Brady added white collar defense attorney Luke Cass, who has a decade-plus experience as a federal prosecutor, to its litigation and dispute resolution practice group as a partner in Washington. (Quarles.com)

Legal Actions, Bankruptcies, Decisions

• Whole Foods is on track for approval of a $4 million class-action settlement over allegations that “non-alcoholic” kombucha beverages sold in its stores contained more alcohol than the permitted trace amount, with class counsel seeking about 25 percent of that. Greenberg Traurig represents Health-Ade and Whole Foods. (BLAW)

• Massachusetts prosecutors, public defenders, and civil litigants represented by Goodwin asked a federal court to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting immigration arrests in courthouses. The practice is unconstitutional and violates U.S. law, the plaintiffs say. (BLAW)

• The Supreme Court asked for the U.S. Solicitor General’s views on the nine-year-old copyright dispute between Google and Oracle over Google’s copying of Java application programming interfaces into its Android operating system. (National Law Journal)

Technology

• London-based Slaughter and May announced the first group of six legal tech developers to join its new “Collaborate” program. (SlaughterandMay.com)

Legal Education

• Manhattan-based Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School is launching what it says is the first master’s degree in data and privacy law offered by a law campus and not aimed at lawyers. (New York Law Journal)