• Oil service giants Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Inc. called off their $28 billion merger in the face of stiff resistance from regulators in the U.S. and Europe over antitrust concerns. (Bloomberg News)
• John Estey, a former Ballard Spahr partner and onetime chief of staff to a former Pennsylvania governor, was charged with wire fraud in connection with claims that he used a lobbying firm to secretly pay campaign donations to state politicians to influence legislation. (Legal Intelligencer)
• The Wiley Rein-owned lobby and communications shop McBee Strategic has hired Garth Moore, the digital director of rock star Bono’s ONE campaign. The firm hired Moore to lead its digital advocacy unit as part of an effort to revamp McBee, acquired by Wiley Rein in 2014. (Washington Post)
• European counterterrorism officials are pushing U.S. tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp to be more forthcoming to overseas requests for information in their terror investigations. (Wall Street Journal)
• U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin has joined JAMS, a private provider of mediation and arbitration services. (Big Law Business)
Legal Market
• Shearman & Sterling attorney Georg Thoma is stepping down early as head of Deutsche Bank AG’s integrity committee, to be replaced by a Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP of counsel, Louise Parent. (Big Law Business)
• In a reflection of its changing image and ambitions, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCoy said it will move out of the New York City offices it leased a half-century ago to a not-yet-constructed tower near ‘starchitect row’ on the far West Side of Manhattan, in 2018. (Big Law Business)
• Despite a second-straight year of declining revenue and profits per partner at his firm in 2015, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s managing partner said he’s happy with the performance of the firm, which he said is “growing in smart ways.” (American Lawyer)
• In two upcoming cases in San Francisco federal court against Fortune 500 companies — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and FedEx Corp. — federal prosecutors will test their aggressive and relatively novel legal theories on corporate culpability. (The Recorder)
• Kansas City law firm Husch Blackwell said it is merging with Wisconsin business and litigation firm Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C., in a Midwestern tie-up that will bring together 717 attorneys and 787 staff in 19 offices across the U.S. and in London. (Big Law Business)
SCOTUS
• Editorial: Senate Republicans should rescue the Supreme Court from an eight-member “limbo” of 4-4 ties that could go on as long as two terms, possibly longer, if the party continues to refuse to consider replacing the late Supreme Court Justice Scalia until after the presidential election. (New York Times)
Laterals and Moves
• Daimler AG said it has hired investigators from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu for an internal probe requested by the U.S. Department of Justice, linked to a U.S. class action alleging that some Daimler cars violate diesel emission standards. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)
• As general counsel at financial services company Square Inc., Dana Wagner needs to consider legal ramifications of never-seen-before financial products while managing a team of some 100 counsels, the majority of whom are not lawyers. (Big Law Business)
• Latham & Watkins has a new managing partner in Washington. Antitrust lawyer Mike Egge took over at the beginning of March from Alice Fisher, a former U.S. Justice Department Criminal Division chief. (National Law Journal)
• After a federal appeals court reinstated his four-game suspension in the Deflategate scandal, New England Patriots star Tom Brady and the NFL Players Association have expanded the quarterback’s legal team, adding Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Theodore Olson, who represented George W. Bush and served as U.S. Solicitor General from 2001 to 2004. (Big Law Business)
• President Barack Obama appointed two District of Columbia Superior Court judges to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, breaking from his recent trend of appointing lawyers from private law firms to the federal court in Washington. (National Law Journal)
• DLA Piper promoted a record 48 lawyers to partner, including 18 in the United States and 14 in the UK. (The Lawyer)
Technology
• Legal tech startup FactBox’s cloud-based software for case-management simplifies litigators’ lives by organizing case facts, notes, evidence, and ideas in a central location, writes a New York attorney who works at a law practice management software company. (Big Law Business)
• So-called robo advisers have garnered praise for their low-cost and automated approach to investment portfolio management, and the sector is managing an estimated $53 billion in assets. But critics have started raising questions. (New York Times)
• As use of social media by jurors continues to disrupt trials, a California Assembly member has proposed a bill for a pilot program that would allow judges to impose monetary sanctions up to $1,500 on a juror for violating rules against social media use by jurors. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg BNA)
• Security researchers have found big flaws in Samsung’s “smart-home” platform, which they said could allow a hacker to trigger a home’s smoke detector via the internet or crack a home’s digital lock. (Wired)
• Kindle’s pricey new ebook reader Oasis is beautiful and could be enticing for some but it is still not like reading a physical book, for one reviewer. (TechCrunch)
Legal Education
• George Mason University is downplaying a backlash against its decision to rechristen its law school in honor of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, saying a petition against renaming the school for the controversial U.S. Supreme Court member drew signatures from less than 8 percent of the faculty. (Big Law Business)
• A former Suffolk University law student faces charges that he tampered with a courthouse verdict file as part of an alleged scheme to obtain his law degree from the school despite his separate conviction for stealing a laptop from a campus locker, for which he recently lost an appeal. (National Law Journal)
Miscellaneous
• A family fight over the trademark to Frank Zappa’s music and name has forced Zappa’s son Dweezil to stop billing his Zappa tribute tour as “Zappa Plays Zappa.” (New York Times)
Written by Rick Mitchell with assistance from Casey Sullivan.