• FCC chief Tom Wheeler said he plans to leave the agency Jan. 20 when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. That will likely mean the end of network neutrality rules the agency adopted to keep internet providers like Comcast and Verizon from charging web companies like Netflix and Twitter for so-called fast lanes for their services. (Recode)
• Pepper Hamilton is getting sued by a former Baylor University associate athletics director who blames the firm’s Title IX internal investigations report for his abrupt firing. The report said university administrators failed to support students who encountered sexual harassment or assault, even discouraging some from making reports. (Legal Intelligencer)
• The FBI’s failure to investigate Russian hackers’ efforts to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign even as the bureau “zealously” conducted a “massive” investigation into Clinton’s email server shows that something is seriously “broken” at the FBI, argues John Podesta, who was Clinton’s campaign chairman and a primary target of the hacks. (Washington Post) President Barack Obama said the U.S. will retaliate against Russia for its interference in the U.S. presidential election. (Washington Post) But the U.S. faces big obstacles to capturing or prosecuting Russian hackers. (New York Times)
• Yahoo! Inc. allowed hackers to access personal and confidential information of its users and failed to warn consumers of a cybersecurity breach, a proposed class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday claims. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• Many firms have recently upped their family leave benefits, but they frame the issue as a women’s one. By contrast, Lowenstein Sandler announced a new gender-neutral family leave policy that will grant primary caregivers up to 16 weeks paid parental leave and 24 weeks total leave upon the birth or adoption of a child. (BLB)
Legal Market
• “My plan is to have no plan,” says Warren Gorrell, the onetime chair of Hogan Lovells who stepped down from his role as co-CEO in 2013 and has announced his official retirement. Talking to BLB Thursday, Gorrell reflected on lessons learned over his nearly four-decade career, the importance of teamwork, leadership support for the firm’s pro bono efforts, and a 1986 deal that opened doors to relationships with Merrill Lynch and other investment banks. (BLB)
• Dentons is said to have pulled out of negotiations to take over a large part of King & Wood Mallesons’ EUME branch after partners refused to okay a 25 percent cut in their share of profits. (The Lawyer)
• Christmas is right around the corner, meaning that the time has come for the usual passel of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, of bitter division over words and symbols — in short, of all the usual trimmings of the season. Here’s a quick roundup of some holiday-theme lawsuits. (Bloomberg View)
• Latham & Watkins is representing two major energy producers who have begun prepackaged bankruptcy proceedings in hopes of restructuring their businesses in a deflated U.S. energy market. (Am Law Daily)
• California, New York City, and Florida have some of the nation’s worst “judicial hellholes” for defendants because of their excessively plaintiff-friendly conditions, according to the latest report from the American Tort Reform Association. The American Association for Justice, which advocates for plaintiff lawyers, dismissed the report as a “publicity stunt.” (National Law Journal)
• A Washington, D.C., federal appeals court Thursday rejected an annuities trade association’s petition to block Department of Labor rules aimed at minimizing conflicts of interest in the retirement-investment industry. (Financial Planning)
• The American Institute of CPAs sent a wish list of tax code simplifications and technical changes for lawmakers to consider when Congress debates a possible tax overhaul next year. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
• Paris-based Sanofi is said to be in advanced talks to acquire Actelion Ltd., in a deal that could be announced as soon as next week, now that Johnson & Johnson has abandoned talks to buy the Swiss drugmaker. (Bloomberg)
• Chicago litigation boutique Eimer Stahl said its 2016 bonus scale includes a generous bonus for new associates who previously clerked for federal judges. With a second tier of profit-sharing bonuses, the firm’s associate bonus payouts will exceed those being paid by Cravath and many other leading law firms, it said.
(Eimer Stahl)
• Perspective: Studies suggest that corporations are successfully using sponsorship programs to boost women and minorities into leadership positions. Law firms can achieve similar success improving diversity with programs in which young lawyers get thoughtful coaching, close attention and strong backing from partner-sponsors, write two Dentons attorneys. (BLB)
More on the Transition to a Trump presidency
• Trump is hearing from the music and publishing industries about the importance of copyright protections to the national economy. (Bloomberg BNA via BLB)
• Trump’s legal romp over neighbors of his methane-gas oozing golf course in the Bronx gives a good indication of what environmental justice will be like under his presidency. (Wired)
Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts
• A New Mexico lawyer has made a hail Mary appeal asking the U.S. Supreme Court to compel the Senate to vote on the nomination of Merrick Garland to become the court’s ninth member. (National Law Journal)
• An appeals court has upheld a Virginia voter ID law, essentially providing a road map for how states can require identification from voters without violating the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution. (Bloomberg View)
Laterals and Moves
• Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has hired Katherine Goldstein, who is leaving next month as head of the securities fraud unit in the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office, making it the latest firm to add a departing federal prosecutor to its ranks in New York. (New York Law Journal)
• DLA Piper has inked a cooperation pact with the 25-lawyer Chilean firm Bahamondez, Alvarez and Zegers, which specializes in natural resources and energy. The joint office will operate in Santiago under the name BAZ/DLA Piper. (Daily Business Review)
• Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson has grabbed V. Gerard “Jerry” Comizio, now ex-chair of Paul Hastings’ global banking and payment systems practice, to head its banking group in Washington, D.C. (Am Law Daily)
• U.K. firm Addleshaw Goddard has recruited a chief operating officer from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, getting Axel Koelsch, who was the elite London-based firm’s COO for Austria and Germany. (The Lawyer)
• Financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard is getting former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer senior partner Will Lawes as a managing director. (The Lawyer)
Technology
• Facebook is finally taking fake news seriously, with a “cautious” and “sensible” plan to use new tools to combat false news stories on its site, including cooperation with third-party fact-checkers. (Slate)
• Atlanta has begun to make a name for itself as an attractive location for legal tech startups and experienced companies. (Legaltech News)
• The share price for Yahoo! Inc. fell Thursday after the company disclosed a second major security breach that may have affected more than 1 billion user accounts, a development that some analysts say may lead Verizon Communications Inc. to reconsider its bid for the main web businesses. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• Yahoo can’t help being Yahoo, the technology industry’s most hapless company. And now the market is betting the company’s incompetence might cost shareholders $1 billion or more. (Bloomberg via BLB)
• “The Maxforce” is the European Union team that ordered Ireland to collect billions of euros in back taxes from Apple Inc., rattled the Irish government, and spurred changes to international tax law. You’d think it might have earned the name by applying maximum force while investigating alleged financial shenanigans. It didn’t. It’s just led by a guy named Max. (Bloomberg)
• General Motors Co. will begin producing self-driving cars at a Michigan factory — and testing them on the state’s roads — in a step toward building the vehicles on a large scale, the company said. The plan illustrates how automakers’ progress toward an era of self-driving cars is starting to converge with lawmakers’ efforts to keep pace. (Bloomberg)
Legal Education
• Nationwide first-year law school enrollment ticked up slightly this fall, its first increase since 2010, when soaring tuition and the dismal job market for new lawyers led many potential applicants to do something else. Schools are probably not celebrating that essentially flat statistic, but after seeing enrollment shrink 29 percent over the last six years, they may be glad for the respite. (National Law Journal)
Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.