Wake Up Call: Legal Sector Adds 700 Jobs in May Despite Layoffs

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

• The US legal services sector managed to add about 700 jobs in May to reach 1,180,400, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gains came despite recent layoffs at some Big Law firms. (BLS.gov)
• The two former Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith partners who recently exited the firm with about 140 other lawyers to start a new firm were accused of using racist and sexist language in internal emails while still at Lewis Brisbois. (New York Post) (Daily Beast)
• Lawyers for chemical giant 3M Co. and the city of Stuart, Florida, on Sunday asked a court to delay a trial set to begin today over so-called forever chemicals as settlement talks between the two sides were said to progress. (WSJ)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• A Las Vegas intellectual property attorney is suing Amazon.com for defamation, claiming the company put her on its list of “blacklisted” attorneys in error. The listing has caused two of the attorneys clients to have their Amazon Brand Registry applications rejected, the complaint said. (Law.com)
• Kramer Levin managing partner Howard T. Spilko told an interviewer that, with the large-cap M&A deal market sagging right now, his firm has been seeing “real activity” in the middle market, which is less reliant on debt markets. (American Lawyer)
• Florida-based plaintiffs firm Morgan & Morgan is threatening to file an attorney’s lien against Kansas for $2.8 million in uncompensated work after state Attorney General Kris Kobach fired the firm. The dispute is delaying the state’s $50 million lawsuit accusing energy companies of price gouging against Kansans. (Topeka Capital-Journal)

Laterals, Moves, In-house

• Bradley Arant Boult Cummings grabbed two longtime construction partners from Alston & Bird, getting John Spangler and Deborah Cazan for its new Atlanta office. Spangler was Alston’s construction and government contracts practice leader. (Bradley.com)
• UK elite firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer recruited veteran Paris-based bankruptcy and restructuring attorney Guilhem Bremond as partner. Arriving with his team from Paul Hastings, Bremond has close to 30 years’ experience across both in-court and out-of-court restructurings, as well as restructuring and insolvency litigation and advising on distressed investments, according to a statement. (Freshfields.com) (Option Droit & Affaires)
• Buchalter Nemer picked up Lewis Brisbois commercial and worklaw litigator Jon Olafson as shareholder in Denver in its labor and employment practice. He’ll chair Buchalter’s new organizational inclusion, diversity, and belonging group, the firm said. (Buchalter.com)
• Holland & Knight said it expanded its technology policy team in Washington, bringing in former K&L Gates government affairs adviser Sean McGlynn as senior policy adviser. (HKLaw.com)
• The nonprofit New York Lawyers for the Public Interest added civil rights lawyers William Juhn and Sakeena Trice as senior staff attorneys in its disability justice program. (NYLPI.org)

Technology

• Los Angeles-based legaltech startup Steno closed a $15 million series B funding round, nearly doubling the company’s total funding to $38.5 million, a report said. (Los Angeles Business Journal)