Wake Up Call: Twitter Threatens to Sue Meta Over New Threads App

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

• After Meta quickly acquired tens of millions of subscribers to its new Twitter-like microblog network Threads, Twitter Inc. lawyer Alex Spiro wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg threatening a trade secrets lawsuit. (Associated Press) (Above The Law) In its response, Meta said no former Twitter employees are on its Threads engineering team. (CBS News)
• Gibson Dunn said its investment funds team led by partner Roger Singer advised real estate investment manager EQT Exeter on its latest fund investing in industrial assets. The fund closed with $4.9 billion of capital commitments, beating its target by $900 million. (EQTGroup.com)
• Fox Rothschild is moving out of the offices in Center City, Philadelphia that it has occupied since 1978 into new premises across Market Street that are more than 40% smaller than the 133,000 square feet of its old location. The firm says it has downsized its offices in 12 of 29 locations in the last two years in response to changing work habits. (Philadelphia Business Journal)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Legal services company UnitedLex announced that it promoted former Littler Mendelson chief data analytics officer Aaron Crews to executive vice president, chief product and innovation officer. Crews, who among other things was Walmart’s global head of eDiscovery, was a Littler litigation shareholder and top lawyer at Text IQ, an AI-powered data management and compliance software platform. (UnitedLex.com)
• Federal prosecutors in the classified documents criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump are facing harassment and threats online and elsewhere, according to a report. (WaPo)
• Mike Allen and Samantha Harris of Allen Harris Law have been called “lawyers to the canceled.” (New York Post)
• After a partner resigned from Knights plc, the UK law firm told her she was personally liable for her unbilled work in progress. (Roll On Friday)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• CF Industries Holdings, Inc., the world’s biggest nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer, promoted VP, chief compliance officer, and assistant secretary Michael McGrane to vice president, GC, and secretary effective July 7. He replaces senior VP, general counsel, and secretary, Douglas Barnard, who announced he will retire from the Deerfield, Illinois-based company Jan. 12, 2024. (Businesswire)
• Arnold & Porter picked up Cooley heath care compliance attorney Gina Cavalier as partner in Los Angeles in its life sciences & health care regulatory practice. (Arnold & Porter)
• Hughes Hubbard named Paris-based partner Jan Dunin-Wasowicz and Washington-based counsel Sean Reilly, a former US Commerce Department official, to lead its sanctions, export controls, and anti-money laundering practice group. (HughesHubbard.com)
• Anderson Kill recruited former Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement attorney Paul W. Ryan, recently counsel to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, as a shareholder in New York City in its white collar defense and corporate and commercial litigation practice groups. Ryan was a Pfizer corporate counsel earlier in his career. (AndersonKill.com)
• Franklin, Tennessee-based behavioral health care services network Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. hired industry veteran Brian Farley as executive vice president and general counsel effective July 26. He arrives from Medicare plan marketplace GoHealth, Inc. where he was chief legal officer and corporate secretary since June 2020. (MarketScreener)
• Dallas-based SmartRoof AI, a tech-powered roofing company, named experienced startup executive and in-house counsel Nick Schanbaum as head of business development and general counsel. (PR Newswire)
• Lyell Immunopharma, Inc. hired former Gilead Sciences vice president, legal Matthew Lang as the San Francisco-based company’s chief business officer, legal officer, and corporate secretary. A former Dechert LLP attorney, Lang arrives recently from Myovant Sciences, Inc. where he was chief administrative and legal officer and corporate secretary. (Lyell.com)