Big 4

Morning Docket: 05.09.23

* Senate Democrats ask Harlan Crow for details on all gifts granted to Clarence Thomas... or any other justice. A request that he'll ignore and the Democrats won't do anything about. [Bloomberg Law News] * Donald Trump allowed limited access to evidence against him in criminal trial, only in the presence of his attorneys in a bid to prevent the defendant from causing a social media firestorm. Aw... after this many years, folks still think Trump listens to his lawyers? [Law360] * Disney's superior attorneys are just going to keep updating this complaint every time Ron DeSantis digs himself a little deeper. [Deadline] * Sam Bankman-Fried asks judge to dismiss 10 of 13 charges against him because if anyone knows a worthless claim when he sees one it's Sam Bankman-Fried. [Reuters] * Despite doom and gloom from firms cutting headcount, the industry overall is in recovery... but Biglaw and Small Law are taking different paths back to the summit. [American Lawyer] * An interview with Steven Thomas, a former Sullivan & Cromwell partner who started his own practice focusing on litigating against Big 4 audit firms for failing to detect fraud at their clients. [Oh My Fraud]

Morning Docket: 04.12.23

* Don't you hate it when you get to the eve of trial and have to admit your disclosures about the client's leadership structure have been wrong all this time? No... because that doesn't happen in real life. Unless you're representing Fox News. [Law360] * Kentucky is going to auction off the gun from the Louisville shooting? Like, for real? [Washington Post] * Breaking up is hard to do as EY learns. [Bloomberg Law News] * Johnson & Johnson "faces skepticism" over bankruptcy shenanigans in strong contender for understatement of the year. [Reuters] * It's good to be from Missouri. If you're a law firm anyway. [American Lawyer] * "10 pics of Pedro Pascal dressed like law firms" is surprisingly true to the headline. [LegalCheek]

The Big 4 Are Coming, But Maybe Not For The Law Firms… Yet.

Accounting firms might enter the legal sector through a different door.

Global Law Firm Expansion Is All About Becoming More Local

Dentons is growing in size, but its focus is on growing in local connections.

Can The Accounting Firms Unseat Biglaw?

Times are changing. Are law firms in trouble?

Morning Docket: 04.25.19

* The Am Law 100 left $4.4 billion on the table last year. Or... maybe. Biglaw offered $4.4 billion in discounts which could mean the industry undercut each other for an overall loss of value. Or it could mean the market gravitated toward what legal services are really worth. An interesting walk through the finances of Biglaw work. [American Lawyer] * Some Selendy & Gay partners are headed to arbitration Quinn Emanuel over a provision in their agreement that Quinn's exercising seeking a portion of their profits on ported business. So much for my wishful thinking that the two firms would come to let bygones be bygones. [New York Law Journal] * Litigation funders are hiring lobbyists to push back against a new push by Senate Republicans to require more transparency -- something those same Senate Republicans spend a lot of time fighting against when it comes to... lobbyists. The circle of life. [American Lawyer] * March Madness continues in court with testimony about Arizona paying players. It's at this point that we recall that Arizona wasn't even the best college basketball team in Arizona this season. [Law360] * EY continues its overseas legal build-out. [Law.com] * Twitter's chief legal officer made $11 million last year to tell everyone that they can't do anything about Nazis. [Corporate Counsel] * Supreme Court crushes class victims again! [Courthouse News Service]

Embracing ‘Unprofessionalism’

Non-attorneys offer a lot to the legal industry -- clients need to recognize that.

Morning Docket: 01.17.19

* Jay-Z pointed out that it's nearly impossible to find a diverse arbitrator and Blank Rome says the claim that white arbitrators may be biased against minorities, "dubious, indeed offensive" and "contravenes every published authority on the matter." Every published authority? Bold. [American Lawyer] * Law professor notes that legal technology is going to kill off junior lawyers, which is something I've been saying for years now. [Legal Cheek] * Big 4's coming yo! (Hong Kong edition) [International] * The EPA is basically an empty shell these days. [Courthouse News Service] * The government shutdown raises hacking risks... which doesn't sound encouraging. [Law360] * Supreme Court poised to make it easier to access booze. Kavanaugh's appointment already paying dividends. [NY Times] * Trump appoints more dicks to the courts. [American Lawyer]

Morning Docket: 01.10.19

* It's probably sociopathic to make "I just killed a deer" part of your online dating banter, but it's downright stupid when you make it part of your online dating banter while trying to woo a game warden. [CNN] * Ahoy maties! Maritime firms Jones Walker and Fowler Rodriguez merge. [Daily Business Review] * Coming legal developments that could revolutionize the law. [Law.com] * Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law now covers police officers shooting innocent people in the back. [Slate] * Federal judge calls for "bone-crushing" discovery. Hopefully the sets a new precedent and judges start asking for "disemboweling" briefing and "waterboarding" voir dire. [Law360] * Another online J.D. program -- and this one's bringing in students with higher LSAT scores than the residential program. [New York Law Journal] * The good and bad news for employers when it comes to workplace class actions. Isn't the good news for employers always, "the Supreme Court is about to make these illegal"? [Corporate Counsel]

Morning Docket: 11.29.18

* Trump's talking about pardoning Manafort again. The power of the president to pardon people is clear, but the power of the president to tease a pardon to tamper with a witness is an interesting legal wrinkle. In a way, the pardon power is a Yoda conundrum: "do or do not, there is no publicly Tweeting signals." [NPR] * Speaking of Manafort, his attorneys claim their joint defense agreement covered his tipping off Trump on details of the Mueller investigation. Except... he pleaded guilty. That kind of ends the "joint defense" part. [The Hill] * Jeffrey Epstein's massive child sex ring allegations ended in a 13-month sentence and the prosecutor who bent over backward to protect him is now in Trump's cabinet. Oh, and somehow Cy Vance's obsequious starf**king ass shows up in this story because of course it does. [Miami Herald] * It's been a few days, so it's time to remind everyone that the Big 4 accounting firms are about to wreak havoc on Biglaw. [American Lawyer] * Stacey Abrams is suing over Georgia's voting laws, and Professor Hasen is here to explain how brilliant this suit is. [Slate] * Uber ordered to pay more than $1 million in fines because they failed to notice the surge pricing on data breach liability. [Corporate Counsel] * Attorney poised to become godparent to royal baby. [Legal Cheek] * The author of this piece is confused by how Republicans seem to completely misunderstand Section 230. It's probably not confusing: they just want to kill it and lying about it is the easiest path. [The Verge]

Morning Docket: 09.27.18

* Is anything going on today? [BBC] * Anything at all? [USA Today] * Dan Snyder and Cadwalader settle their massive malpractice suit so Snyder can focus full time on his team's inevitably heartbreaking collapse. [Law360] * Speaking of Washington's football franchise, the heiress of its former owner is facing criminal charges for allegedly saying, "hurry up Jew" before beating a lawyer in the head until he bled. Lovely organization Washington's got there! [Fox News] * After months of bad press, America's tech giants are calling for a federal privacy law. Or, more accurately, after California passed a privacy law, America's tech giants are calling for a neutered federal law to preempt California's. [Reuters] * Since Rod Rosenstein might be leaving our public lives as early as today, here's an in-depth look at one of his most bonkers cases. [Washingtonian] * DLA Piper adds the former ambassador to Argentina as a special advisor. In other news, David Mamet's son used to be the ambassador to Argentina? Was anyone else tracking that? UPDATE: OK, I feel vindicated that I hadn't missed something huge. DLA Piper confirms that he's not actually David Mamet's son. I would've thought that would have been a bigger deal. [National Law Journal] * Amazon's commitment to screwing over its workers and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill runs right up to the NLRA line. But it's cool since that law won't survive Kavanaugh's first year. [Gizmodo] * Why PwC's new Fragomen partnership is a big deal. [Law.com]

Morning Docket: 08.10.18

* As they say, you can't buy class, but you can insure against it. There's actually a thing called disgrace insurance for celebrities behaving badly. [Law.com] * Barbara Jones has completed her privilege review of the Michael Cohen materials. In a shock to absolutely no one, only about half of the material designated as privileged was really privileged. [Courthouse News Service] * Michael Avenatti is really considering a presidential run and is making the requisite Iowa tour to prove it. [Bloomberg] * With E&Y getting into the legal game, will the clients follow. [Corporate Counsel] * Checking in on Christopher Garvey's retaliation case against Morgan Stanley. [National Law Journal] * Get ready for litigation! California has a law requiring pharmaceutical companies provide advanced notice before jacking up prices. Eli Lilly has decided to just spike the price on insulin with no warning anyway. [LA Times]

Morning Docket: 08.09.18

* The Keystone Kops that are Trump's legal team have rejected Mueller's interview request and posed a counteroffer to answer only questions about the weather. [ABA Journal] * If you're getting tired of hearing that the Big 4 will soon come in and crush the rest of the legal landscape... well, too bad, because here's the latest ominous development. [ALM Legal Intelligence] * Rep. Chris Collins will continue to seek re-election after getting indicted. He must have some hot inside info on his re-election chances. [NBC] * New York issues a wage base for Uber, Lyft, and other ride-share drivers. And then promptly squanders that good deed by putting a cap on licenses, artificially jacking up the price. [Law360] * TIL there's a Mexican condom cartel. Now all I can think about is a show like Queen of the South... but for condoms. [Corporate Counsel] * Alex Jones's lawyer is looking to dox the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook because everyone involved with Alex Jones is an inhuman monster. [The Hill] * The law requiring drivers to only use the left lane to pass is "routinely ignored by drivers" This story should read "routinely ignored by bad drivers." [KRISTV]

Asia Becomes Ground Zero In Big 4 Effort To Take Over The Legal Market

What's going on in Asia could be a roadmap for the future of legal services.

Twilight Of The Law Firms: The Big 4 Are Poised To Conquer The Legal Landscape

The existential threat to law firms may not be technology after all.