Wake Up Call: Will GCs Who Join Law Firms Succeed?

• In recent months, as a few West Coast law firms have hired prominent general counsel , some skeptics question the logic of hiring such attorneys, given they may not bring an immediate book of business. (The Recorder)

• Opinion: Volkswagen A.G.'s nearly $15 billion settlement over U.S. lawsuits related to its emissions test-cheating scandal shows the high-dollar cost of corporate fraud. To curb such fraud, corporate executives must face the prospect of doing time in prison and not just fines. (New York Times)

• Celebrity divorce attorney Stacy Phillips cited cyber security as a motivating factor in her recent decision to join Blank Rome , where the “ bigger platform ” will better protect her clients’ highly sensitive personal information. (Big Law Business)

• Five observations worth knowing from lawyers who have opposed Donald Trump , about litigation with Trump and potentially settling a case with him. (Law.com)

Legal Market

• Boston-based Goodwin Procter Tuesday unveiled a rebrand that chops off Procter from the shingle and recreates its firm logo as an orange G. (Big Law Business)

• Two lawyers at Wolf Haldenstein who originally teamed up to bring the song “Happy Birthday to You” into the public domain are now trying to do the same for “We Shall Overcome” and “This Land is Your Land.” (Big Law Business/Bloomberg BNA)

• Norton Rose Fulbright reported a 3.4 percent expansion in its global revenue for the 2015/16 financial year. (The Lawyer)

• Advice for young lawyers starting their careers, from Franci Blassberg, a visiting professor at Cornell Law School and a founder of BigLaw Coaches, which mentors recent law school students and graduates. Blassberg was Debevoise & Plimpton’s first woman corporate partner and is now a retired partner and of counsel at the firm. (Big Law Business)

• For trial law firms, it can take months or even years to collect fees from huge awards like the proposed $14.7 billion settlement in the Volkswagen case. And when the money does come in, it often goes to pay the firm’s current cases and expenses, class-action attorneys say. (Law.com)

• If you own a Volkswagen with a diesel engine in the U.S., the company will buy back your car and pay you as much as $10,000, but owners of the same car in Europe may only get a piece of pipe. Experts cited big legal and regulatory differences between the EU and the United States, such as a lack of U.S.-style class-action lawsuits in the EU, as contributing to the discrepancy. (Bloomberg News)

Brexit

• The U.K.’s vote to break from the European Union has implications for the country’s influence in drug approval decisions for Europe, research funding for its life-sciences industry and patients’ access to critical new medicines, experts said. (Bloomberg News)

• Roughly 14,300 lawyers were working for U.S.-based firms in the pre-Brexit European Union, with 7,100 of them in the U.K., according to new data. (National Law Journal)

• Sherrod Brown, Democratic senator from Ohio, warned that Brexit could undermine EU-U.S. efforts to harmonize regulation since the financial crisis and lead to a return to a “patchwork” of financial rules that pits regulators against each other and allow financial institutions to skirt oversight. (Financial Times)

• Last week’s Brexit vote took financial markets and bookmakers by surprise, but a steady stream of the U.K.’s antitrust lawyers had already prepared for the worst by registering to practice as solicitors in Ireland . (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)

• As law firms and clients wait out the legal and regulatory uncertainty of Brexit, the falling British pound could lure new buyers into the British deal market. The weaker quid is already lowering living costs for many U.S. firms’ lawyers in London who are paid in dollars, while raising them for many UK firms’ lawyers living abroad. (Big Law Business)

• Experts said Brexit will likely have minimal effect on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, but they foresaw possible data transfer uncertainties depending on the kind of new relationship the U.K. elects to have with the EU. (Legaltech News)

SCOTUS and other courts

• In a weighty case for its next term beginning Oct. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday agreed to hear an appeal filed by Wells Fargo and Bank of America against the city of Miami’s use of the Fair Housing Act to sue over alleged predatory lending practices and discrimination targeting minorities by the banks. (National Law Journal)

• The Supreme Court also agreed to hear an antitrust case targeting Visa and three major banks over ATM fees, while refusing to hear cases regarding two states’ abortion restrictions. (National Law Journal)

Laterals and Moves

• After several departures from its offices in Europe, U.K. firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has restructured its European management structure. (The Lawyer)

• Silicon Valley firm Fenwick & West, which recently opened a New York City office, has a longstanding policy that essentially allows attorneys to work from wherever they choose . (American Lawyer)

• Cooley is moving to expand its IP practice by hiring two partners away from Big Law rivals: Mika Reiner Mayer is joining the firm in Palo Alto from Morrison & Foerster, while Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman trademark practice leader Bobby Ghajar is joining in Los Angeles. (The Recorder)

Technology

• Hillary Clinton’s “comprehensive” new technology and innovation policy agenda addresses today’s biggest tech issues. (Wired)

• Encryption ransomware attacks on law firms have increased sharply in 2016, with the increase rate much steeper abroad, according to a report by Kaspersky Lab. (Legaltech News)

• On Friday, an EU regulation takes effect that standardizes protocols used in digital signatures across the EU and, among other things, allows U.S. law firms to engage in transactions in the EU with electronic signatures with more confidence, writes a litigation technology expert. (Above the Law)

Legal Education

• The U.S. Department of Justice will require its law enforcement agents and prosecutors to get training aimed at preventing “implicit bias” in their decisions on the job. (ABA Journal)

• The University of Houston System is suing a newly re-named law school in the city for trademark infringement . (WSJ Law Blog)

Miscellaneous

• Star Wars creator George Lucas has dropped plans to build a museum on Chicago’s lakefront. (American Lawyer)

• GoPro Inc. has filed a California federal lawsuit against the companies backing a rival Polaroid-branded camera alleging that it infringes a GoPro patent related to providing a low-resolution preview of images captured in high resolution. (The Recorder)

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Gabe Friedman.

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