• In the past year, Linklaters’ China and Hong Kong offices have lost 12 partners — a fifth of its headcount in Asia — as a result of “stringently managed lockstep and political infighting.” (The Lawyer)
• In a move that brings together two of the biggest companies in the e-Discovery software market, kCura has acquired Content Analyst Company on undisclosed terms. (Big Law Business)
• For the fifth year in a row, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom topped a survey of general counsel for the most elite law firm brand. (Law 360)
• Latin America looks set to see a new wave of debt restructuring to fuel dealmaking, as recession, political turmoil and falling commodity and oil prices added to rising interest rates, make it hard for companies to generate free cash. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)
Legal Market
• In a $202 million deal, Sullivan & Cromwell will purchase the tower in New York City’s financial district where its lawyers work. It had already owned part of the building. (American Lawyer)
• Deloitte said Monday that it has acquired Conduit Law, a Toronto-based company that embeds lawyers into corporations, and plans a new entity offering outsourced lawyers to support corporate legal teams and law firms. (Big Law Business)
• Audio: Robert Mintz, a partner at McCarter & English, and Jeff Cramer, managing director at Kroll, discuss a New Hampshire bill that is aimed making juries more aware about their rights to jury nullification. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)
• Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has sued or or been sued in hundreds of lawsuits over the course of his business career. (WSJ Law Blog)
• Two-way trend in energy law: While Texas-based companies increasingly turn to national law firms for their legal work, corporate law firms based in Houston and Dallas are getting more work from out-of-state energy companies. (Houston Chronicle)
Laterals and Moves
• Spotify has hired a new general counsel: Horacio Gutierrez had been Microsoft’s longtime head of intellectual property law and held the title of general counsel. (Re/code)
• Reade Seligmann, one of three Duke University lacrosse team members wrongly accused of rape in 2006, joined New Jersey law firm Connell Foley as an associate in 2014, after receiving his J.D. from Emory University School of Law.(Big Law Business)
• Jennifer Massey, who had founded Cooley’s Los Angeles office and also had appeared on Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” in Season 2 [and was fired], is leaving to start her own boutique. (American Lawyer)
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Ian Terry, who was managing partner between 1996 and 2001, is retiring to become a mediator. (The Lawyer)
• Ballard Spahr has hired Peter Hardy as a partner in its white-collar defense practice in Philadelphia. He joins from Post & Schell. (Legal Intelligencer)
Technology
• During the last two-and-a-half years, Dropbox built its own cloud computer network, and shifted 90 percent of its files off of Amazon Web Services. Its own network runs on “a new breed of machines designed by its own engineers, all orchestrated by a software system built by its own programmers with a brand new programming language.” (Wired)
• A former employee of Volkswagen AG alleges in a lawsuit that personnel at the company’s U.S. unit in Michigan destroyed evidence related to the automaker’s installation of devices on hundreds of thousands of vehicles to cheat emissions tests, although US authorities had ordered it to preserve such evidence. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)
• Xerox released Viewpoint 6.0 with “enhanced visual reports in a dynamic interface for users to organize, visualize, and analyze their data.” (Legaltech News)
• Instant messaging company WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has been adding encryption layers that have stymied federal criminal investigators and may erupt in a new courtroom battle. (The New York Times)
• Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, has proposed sweeping privacy regulations, which if passed, “will prohibit Internet service providers from selling customer data without consumers’ prior consent and limit the kinds of products Internet providers can market to customers based their online activity.” (Wired)
• Google’s artificially intelligent Go-playing computer system defeated Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol in the final game, finishing the best-of-five series with four wins and one loss. (Wired)
Legal Education
• The American Bar Association wants to make its bar passage rule for law schools tougher. (National Law Journal)
• UC President Janet Napolitano is seeking to ban former UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Sujit Choudhry from campus and stripped of tenure, after his resignation last week following a civil suit alleging sexual harassment. Filed by Choudhry’s former assistant, the suit also alleged UC officials mishandled her complaint, prompting Napolitano to order a new review of harrassement policies. (Los Angeles Times)
• The Department of Education said it has decided to fire Chicago law firm Hogan Marren Babbo & Rose Ltd from its role overseeing business practices of formerly for-profit colleges, following a review of the firm’s performance. (New York Times)
Miscellaneous
• Google has lost an appeal in a Russian court against an antitrust ruling pertaining to its Android mobile OS. (Tech Crunch)