• Women lawyers in the top 200 U.S. law firms have made no “appreciable progress” since 2006 in attaining equity partnership or getting pay equal to their male colleagues once they do make equity ranks, according to a recent study by the National Association of Women Lawyers that nevertheless sites some recent progress for women, particularly reaching law school tenure. (Big Law Business)
• The associate bonus system should be reformed to give less weight to billable hours and to better reward creativity and efficiency, a New York University School of Law professor said. (Big Law Business)
• Baker & Hostetler has raked in more than $715 million for its work so far recovering funds for victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, while other firms have earned a total of $92.6 million in that effort, according to a recent report filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York. (The American Lawyer)
• The D.C. Bar plans to spend around $70 million to build its new home — a 100,000-square-foot building in downtown Washington. (LegalTimes)
Legal Market
• With a new report Wednesday that bankruptcy filings continue to plunge in 2015, to their lowest level in eight years, big law firms are adapting by getting more creative and pro-active, and hustling more, in drumming up new business from sectors, practitioners said. (The American Lawyer)
• Latham & Watkins has announced 25 partner promotions worldwide for 2015, including five in New York, four each in Washington and London, and 12 women overall, up from three in 2014. (The Lawyer)
• Munger, Tolles & Olson litigation partner Jeffrey Bleich said Tuesday that he will be working in international arbitration, as increasing numbers of international commercial disputes go to arbitration rather than trial. Bleich, certified by the American Arbitration Association, said work as an arbitrator will allow him to flex muscles he built up during four years as a U.S. ambassador. (Big Law Business)
• Dorsey & Whitney announced that it has opened a new office in Beijing to better serve its Beijing area clients and to give it a platform to expand in China. It opened an office in Shanghai in 2001 and Hong Kong in 1995. (Dorsey & Whitney)
Laterals and Moves
• Clifford Chance has announced its first hire in Germany in several years, the appointment of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s global co-head of energy and natural resources, Anselm Raddatz, to co-head the German corporate group in the firm’s Düsseldorf office and join its global corporate leadership group. (The Lawyer)
Technology
• LifeLock Inc., an identity theft protection services company, said Wednesday that it has reached agreements to settle lawsuits with the Federal Trade Commission and consumers who sued the company. (Wall Street Journal)
• As they wake up to the damage potential of a cyber breach, more public companies are requiring third party vendors — such as law firms — to develop cyber-risk policies and even be ISO 27001 certified, but only one-third of corporate directors have documented policies to protect their business’s critical digital assets, according to a new BDO USA survey. (Legaltech news)
• Swiss software provider LUCY has released a new version of its anti-phishing service, aimed at helping companies provide better training for employees to avoid malware that is increasingly embedded in macros within common office applications. (Legaltech news)
Legal Education
• OP-ED: A growing “conventional” view is that law schools should not admit students whose scores on the Law School Admission Test make them statistically uncertain to do well in law school or pass the bar, and more likely to take on large debts they can’t pay back. But standardized test scores alone shouldn’t determine your future and schools shouldn’t try to protect people from trying to achieve their dreams through hard work, argues a writer. (Big Law Business/Bloomberg News)
• As law schools increasingly focus hiring on candidates’ academic credentials, many law professors have never practiced law, with the result that law school graduates have no practical skills, observes a legal consultant. He calls for a new “legal scholarship,” focused on real-world issues, that provides practical benefits to students. (Big Law Business)
Miscellaneous
• Hogan Lovells has filed a motion to quash a subpoena for all its files linked to two closed federal regulatory probes into consumer complaints alleging fire-prone seat heaters in certain Mercedes-Benz vehicles, in the context of a new class action filed against the automaker in federal court in Los Angeles. (National Law Journal)
• Houston law firm AkinMears is expected to spend $25 million on television advertising this year, among a handful of law firms that will spend over $10 million this year on TV advertising, according to a new report by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. (ABA Journal)
• The $17.2 billion bid by Walgreens Boots Alliance to buy its smaller rival Rite Aid makes business sense but will face substantial obstacles from competition regulators, according to lawyers, bankers and other analysts. (Financial Times)