Wake Up Call: Trump Lawyer, Cadwalader Hit by Malpractice Suit

Welcome to Bloomberg Law’s Wake Up Call, a daily rundown of the top news for lawyers, law firms, and in-house counsel.

• White-collar defense attorney Todd Blanche, who is defending former President Donald Trump in both his New York and Florida criminal cases, was hit by an unrelated legal malpractice claim filed against him and his former law firm, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. The plaintiffs accuse Blanche and Cadwalader of forging their signatures on a retainer agreement and overbilling them while they were under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. (New York Law Journal)
• The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an effort by the state’s suspended attorney general Ken Paxton to get his criminal securities fraud trial moved back from Houston to Collin County, where he lives. Paxton also faces a Senate impeachment trial. (Texas Tribune)
• Sidley Austin represented Eldridge Industries, LLC, owned by investor Todd Boehly, in its acquisition, alongside Dick Clark Productions, of all assets of the Golden Globes Awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Morgan Lewis advised the association. (Digital.ABCaudio.com)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Big Law leaders had mixed reactions to the proposed merger of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. (American Lawyer)
• A Florida federal judge cut by more than half Baker Donelson’s $1.8 million request for attorneys fees in a breach-of-contract case. (Daily Business Review)
• Corporate legal in-house teams expect to lose a lot of attorneys despite high job satisfaction levels, with legal leaders with top titles the most likely to hit the exits, according to a survey report from Deloitte. (PR Newswire)
• The founders of the Citing Slavery Project, an online database of thousands of slave cases and the modern court cases that cite them as precedent, aim to push the legal profession to confront its links to slavery. (NPR.org)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Bradley Arant Boult Cummings added a team of corporate, M&A, and private equity attorneys in Houston from Balch & Bingham. Philip Dunlap and P. Cyrus Chin joined as partner and Rodrigo Martinez Cabello as associate; Bradley also added construction partner Barry Brooks and associates Morgan Crider, and Jacob Muñoz from Peckar& Abramson, PC in Dallas. (Bradley.com)
• Jackson Walker LLP said veteran energy and mineral rights litigator Jeff Grable, who was an associate at the firm earlier in his career, returned as partner in Fort Worth, Texas, in its trial & appellate litigation section. He arrives after 21 years at Kelly Hart LLP. (JW.com)
• Mitchell Sandler, a majority women-owned financial services and financial technology-focused law boutique, recruited former Federal Reserve Board managing counsel Jeremy Hochberg as senior counsel. (MitchellSandler.com)
• Atlanta-headquartered worklaw firm FordHarrison opened an office in Richmond, Virginia, grabbing partner Karen Elliott and counsel Brendan Horgan from Eckert Seamans. (FordHarrison.com)
• Hotel investment company RLJ Lodging Trust hired former Ropes & Gray attorney Chad Perry as executive vice president and general counsel. Perry served recently as EVP, general counsel, and secretary of Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (Businesswire)
• Biopharmaceutical company Carisma Therapeutics Inc. hired experienced life sciences in-house legal and compliance leader Eric Siegel as GC and corporate secretary. He arrives from Idorsia Pharmaceuticals US Inc., where he was vice president, head of compliance US. (PR Newswire)
• AI-powered customer experience platform Inbenta hired former DoorDash senior privacy leader Adam Rivera as chief legal officer. He’s a former executive compensation and employee benefits attorney at Schulte Roth & Zabel. (PR Newswire)

Legal Education

• Eliminating the bar exam as the gatekeeper deciding who gets licensed as an attorney could boost the supply of lawyers by 16%, according to a report. (ABA Journal)