• Demand for law firm services stayed pretty much flat at 0.3 percent while expenses increased 3.4 percent during 2016’s first three quarters, according to a new report from Citi Private Bank’s law firm group and Hildebrandt Consulting, which predicts more slow growth in 2017. (BLB)
• Given today’s increased mobility of both star lawyers and marquee clients, it has never been more important for firms to retain and recruit superstar lawyers, says Brad Karp, of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. (Forbes)
• Being a lawyer is “like holding a key card to a parallel dimension of rule sets in the world,” says Lisa Joy, co-creator of the HBO series “Westworld.” She talked to BLB about going to Harvard Law and writing a screenplay while studying for the bar, her brief career in consulting and law, and why she keeps her California bar membership, among other things. (BLB)
• With legal approval for a $48 billion mega-merger at stake, all eyes are on a Washington, D.C. federal judge who will rule on the U.S. government’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Anthem’s proposed acquisition of Cigna. Bloomberg Law’s Darby Green takes an analytical look at the record of how judge Amy Berman Jackson has ruled in past antitrust cases before her court. (BLB)
• Winston & Strawn and DLA Piper are said to be trying to collect a total of $800,000 in unpaid legal fees from “a very convincing fraudster” who never had the means to pay them. (Am Law Litigation Daily)
Legal Market
• Most law firms’ lateral hiring programs show an “astounding” lack of rigor and all firms fail at lateral hiring at some point, according to a new report from ALM Legal Intelligence. The report’s author, Steven Kovalan, said that, nevertheless, “sophisticated” firms manage to transform the process into a “virtuous circle,” and that starts with effective due diligence. (ALM Legal Intelligence)
• A $2 million verdict could be on the rocks because a juror made Facebook posts about the case, in which a man alleged that a former Milwaukee police officer illegally strip searched him. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• Last year, the head of Peanut Corporation of America was sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-contaminated peanut butter, and his company went out of business. In a current case with some similar underlying facts, a subsidiary of food giant ConAgra is expected to get off with a misdemeanor charge and a fine that is “peanuts” compared with its profits. Why the difference? (Am Law Litigation Daily)
• Medical laboratory operator Quest Diagnostics Inc. says a hack of an internet application on its network has exposed the personal health information of about 34,000 people. (Associated Press via Bloomberg)
• An associate at Williams & Connolly has filed a $50 million negligence lawsuit against the Washington Metro Transit Authority, claiming it’s responsible for an injury he suffered in the subway last year. (BLB)
• Cravath Swaine & Moore’s Eric Schiele weighs in on mergers and acquisitions in the media industry on “Bloomberg Markets.” (Bloomberg via BLB)
• The latest Big Law Docket Scanner takes in eight suits filed by law firms for unpaid legal bills, for amounts ranging from $16,000 to close to $1 million. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• Digital sports network Scout Media Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in New York late last week, still owes a few firms for outstanding legal fees. It recently hired Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice. (Am Law Daily)
• An “autopsy” of King & Wood Mallesons. (The American Lawyer)
More on the Transition to a Trump presidency
• President-elect Donald Trump picked Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state, setting up a potential confirmation battle with U.S. lawmakers who have questioned Tillerson’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Bloomberg)
• A Colorado federal judge Monday rejected a petition by two state electors who want to overturn a state law that obliges them to vote for the presidential candidate who won the state’s popular vote. (Denver Channel)
• The fight between Congressional Democrats and Republicans over reports of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election is “alarming.” (Economist)
• Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chief said her campaign supports a request by members of the Electoral College for an intelligence briefing on Russian intervention in the presidential election. (Politico)
• If you’re looking for drama surrounding this week’s meeting of Federal Reserve officials, don’t look for it in their post-meeting statement. Go instead to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. (Bloomberg)
Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts
• The U.S. Supreme Court rejected two efforts to curb the death penalty, one from a man who said Ohio can’t try a second time to execute him after botching an attempt in 2009 and another from a Florida man sentenced to die 40 years ago. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• The U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal by Maurice “Hank”Greenberg, refusing to derail a fraud lawsuit by New York state against the former American International Group Inc. chairman. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• Steve Sanders, a professor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, discusses several denials handed down by the Supreme Court Monday. (Bloomberg Radio)
• The U.S. Supreme Court let stand the NFL’s $765 million concussion settlement, turning away contentions by former players that the accord won’t adequately compensate them for the brain damage they may have suffered. (Bloomberg)
• The Supreme Court justices unanimously voted to shoot down the appeal of a man who stole about $307,000 out of a Taiwanese businessman’s Bank of America account. (National Law Journal)
• The court affirmed a Colorado law that imposes reporting requirements on Internet retailers in an effort to get customers to pay sales taxes. (Bloomberg)
• A lawyer who was acquitted of criminal fraud charges can’t bring federal civil rights claims against the prosecutors and state officials who were involved in her arrest and prosecution, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
Laterals and Moves
• New York-based Proskauer partner Jennifer Scullion is the latest Big Law lawyer to move to Seeger Weiss, a smaller firm that has acquired a reputation for attracting plaintiffs lawyers with a broad background at large defense firms, who have in common that they are looking for a change. (New York Law Journal)
• In its latest significant lateral hire, Kirkland & Ellis said it is getting Jonathan Davis, a young M&A partner, from Cravath, Swaine & Moore. (Am Law Daily)
Technology
• Is Trump’s Twitter account a threat to national security? (Politico)
• A look at key facts in the case alleging that Russian hackers interfered in the U.S. presidential election. (Ars Technica)
• Despite Trump’s public attacks on some tech companies, Airbnb’s CEO says the company should do well in the Trump era. (Mashable)
• U.K.-based Signal Media said it has raised $7.36 million for a project to apply artificial intelligence technology to sorting news, to “reduce the impact of rumor and false stories on business decision-making.” (Signal)
Legal Education
• California law schools are worried about the American Bar Association’s proposal to toughen its bar passage requirements as early 2017, so that at least 75 percent of a school’s alumni would to have to pass the bar within two years of graduation, instead of the current five years. Only five of California’s 21 ABA accredited law schools saw at least 75 percent of their graduates pass the state’s July bar exam. (The Recorder)
• Ohio authorities released video taken by the dash-cam of a police officer who fatally shot a 26-year-old Case Western Reserve University School of Law student from the United Arab Emirates near Cleveland. The actual shooting happens off-screen. (National Law Journal)
• Noise-reduction headphones, a nice bottle of wine, a trip to Antarctica: gift ideas for the law student in your life. (National Law Journal)
Miscellaneous
• With law firm White & Case expected to move out of its Manhattan premises at 1155 Sixth Ave. in 2017, the building owner is spending $110 million to spruce up the place. (New York Post)
• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to target human rights advocates and lawyers as part of his “war on drugs,” which has killed more than 5,000 people since July. (Human Rights Watch)
• Opinion: Recent attacks on the Strasbourg, France-based European Court of Human Rights are a symptom of wider breakdown in the postwar consensus that accepted international law as a fair price for peace and prosperity. (New York Times)
Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.