Wake Up Call: Ye Hires Johnny Depp Lawyers After Losing Contracts

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

• The rap star Kanye West, who recently changed his name to Ye, has reportedly hired Johnny Depp’s law firm Brown Rudnick and its star partner Camille Vasquez. The firm is representing Ye in his business litigation after the rapper’s anti-semitic comments and claims about the death of George Floyd caused him to lose his contracts with luxury fashion company Balenciaga and other companies, reports said. (TMZ) (CBS News)
• Brown Rudnick is also representing Depp and rock guitarist Jeff Beck in their lawsuit against a writer and filmmaker in New York over copyright claims. (New York Law Journal)
• Law firms’ ability to address specific subject matter and ability to complement the in-house team’s competence are the biggest reasons corporate legal departments cite for deciding to hire outside counsel. Firms’ practice areas, industry expertise, and existing relationships are among top criteria law departments consider when deciding which firm to hire, according to a new survey report by the Association of Corporate Counsel with cloud based e-discovery platform Everlaw. The ACC said it surveyed 202 in-house counsel and legal operations professionals in the US on how their legal departments handle different aspects of the corporate litigation process. (ACC.com)
• Customers of bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network are concerned that their personal information is being revealed through public release of court documents in the case. For example, a large financial disclosure form filed on Oct. 5 contains customer names, account balances, timing of transactions, and more, a report says. (CoinTelegraph)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• A flubbed insurance filing related to Harvard University’s defense of its race-conscious admissions program at the US Supreme Court could end up costing the school $15 million. (NYT)
• Fordham Law grad Kei Komuro, who triggered controversy in Japan after marrying a then-princess, has passed the New York bar exam on his third try. As of April he was listed as a law clerk at Lowenstein & Sandler. (Associated Press)
• A former UCLA doctor was convicted of five counts of sexually assaulting his patients in a sexual abuse case that has cost the University of California nearly $700 million. (WSJ)
• Intellectual property lawyer Mauricio Uribe, a partner and chair of software/IT and electric practices at IP firm Knobbe Martens, co-founded the Washington State Intellectual Property Alliance and will serve as its first president, the firm said. Other founders of the alliance, which is the Washington state chapter of the private sector coalition US Intellectual Property Alliance, include Andy Salvador, director of intellectual property at AT&T, Lawrence Locker, partner at Summit Law Group, and Dana Northcott, vice president and associate general counsel for intellectual property at Amazon, according to a statement. (Knobbe.com)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner grabbed litigation and investigations attorney Daniel Mach as a partner. He joins the firm’s New York trial team, arriving from Quinn Emanuel, where he was of counsel. (LinkedIn.com)

Legal Education

• Overall Texas July bar exam scores were up sharply from scores in February this year but down slightly compared with July 2021 overall scores. (Texas Lawyer) The overall pass rate on Georgia’s July bar exam was up close to 1 percentage point from the last year’s July test. (Daily Report Online)