Bloomberg Law is reporting that Troutman Sanders and Pepper Hamilton have voted to merge, creating a 1,100-lawyer firm with offices in 23 cities known as Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders.

Current Troutman managing partner Steve Lewis will become chair and CEO of the combined firm, and Pepper Hamilton chair Tom Gallagher will become vice chair.

“Troutman is the larger of the two firms, taking in nearly $525 million in revenue in 2018—good for 68th most among U.S. law firms, according to the latest AmLaw rankings,” writes Bloomberg’s Roy Strom.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The ABA Journal reports that a lawsuit claims that Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and its lawyers took advantage of a corporate CEO who was suffering from substance abuse and mental health problems.

The Journal‘s Debra Cassens Weiss explains:

“The suit, filed in state court in New York, says Akin Gump took over finances and bookkeeping for Future Media Architects, a family-owned company that acquires and sells internet domain names. Akin Gump also directed and negotiated the sale of the domain names, often without input from its then-CEO and half owner, Thunayan Al-Ghanim, the suit says.”

…

“But eventually,” the suit alleges, “Akin Gump—aware that Thunayan was in no condition to monitor either FMA’s or Akin Gump’s activities—took advantage of the opportunity to loot FMA’s assets for personal profit.”

Read the  ABA Journal article.

A former Skadden attorney is suing Sullivan & Cromwell for legal malpractice, claiming that the firm represented a client in a matter for which one of its partners had once been an arbitrator, in violation of ethics rules, reports Bloomberg Law.

The plaintiff, Andrew Delaney, claims that Sullivan & Cromwell acted “unlawfully” and “unethically” in the international arbitration matter, according to Bloomberg’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione.

“The Harvard Law School graduate’s complaint alleges that Sullivan & Cromwell partner James H. Carter chaired an arbitration panel that found in favor of Delaney’s clients, and the firm subsequently “proceeded to represent the losing party” to oppose enforcement of the award,” Stanzione writes.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The Eight Circuit has rejected a plaintiff’s claim that an arbitration clause in a retainer agreement she signed with a law firm was unconscionable, according to Carlton Fields’ Reinsurance Focus.

The plaintiff claimed she had received a call from a purported agent of the firm informing her of a purported life-threatening medical condition, leading her to have surgery that she considered to be less than successful. She sued the law firm and other defendants, and the firm sought to compel arbitration pursuant to a retainer agreement.

The district court found the arbitration agreement was unconscionable and refused to compel arbitration. Despite acknowledging that the circumstances that gave rise to this lawsuit were “troubling,” the Eighth Circuit determined that the retainer agreement was not procedurally unconscionable.

Read the article.

The ABA Journal reports that a Biglaw partner who relied on her assistant to create first-draft billing records based on her work product has been suspended for six months for overbilling.

The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers sought a two-year suspension for Boston lawyer Doreen Zankowski for her billing practices when she was at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr. The firm had opened an investigation after Zankowski told her department chair that she worked 3,173 billable hours and more than 720 nonbillable hours in 2015, according to the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court justice hearing the case.

Zankowski conceded to a hearing committee that “her billing practices were inadequate, careless, rushed and error-prone,” according to the justice’s finding.

Read the ABA Journal article.

A forecast from Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group and Hildebrandt Consulting expects law firm revenue growth to rise between 5.5% and 6% in 2020.

The Citi 2020 client advisory offers this partial overview:

“Looking forward, we know that many firms are concerned about the risk of a recession and the underlying macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility. However, we do not anticipate a recession in 2020. That said, we believe it is now prudent for law firms to prepare for less certain times ahead. We also note that firms are facing many talent-related challenges: retention at all levels, the rising cost of talent, and how best to plan for the departure of rainmakers and senior partners.”

Read the Citi report.

Blomberg Law is reporting that a real estate developer is suing New York City litigation boutique O’Shea & Partners for breach of contract, alleging it charged “grossly excessive” and padded fees when it represented the developer beginning in 2013.

Plaintiffs claim the firm charged “almost $1.9 million over a three year period, without engaging in any discovery, or document collection, whatsoever.”

In the complaint in the New York court, plaintiffs Madison Equities LLC and the group’s principal, Robert Gladstone, are seeking at least $900,000 over the “fraudulent” billing, writes Bloomberg’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Littler has launched an initiative to advance nonbinary gender inclusiveness within the firm, according to a release from the firm.

Internally, the firm is providing resources to employees that outline suggested practices for handling matters that involve nonbinary individuals whose gender identities are beyond the two categories of “male” or “female.” Gender-based pronouns will be eliminated from human resources documents, including handbooks, and employees will have the option of choosing a nonbinary identifier in the firm’s internal HR system. In addition, the firm is standardizing email signature blocks including the addition of a voluntary option to include preferred-pronoun identification.

Additionally, marketing collateral and other external materials will be made gender-neutral.

“An important part of gender identity is the pronouns we choose. By being mindful of others’ preferred pronouns and by proactively sharing our own preferred pronouns, we can help to ensure that we respect one another’s gender identity and avoid misgendering people,” said Tom Bender and Jeremy Roth, co-managing directors of Littler, in a joint statement. “In conjunction with broader efforts as part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we’re confident that these initial steps will further foster a more welcoming and inclusive environment for our employees and clients.”

Associates at Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz can thank management for setting a standard-breaking bonus scale for Biglaw associates, according to a report by Above the Law.

The firm, with offices in Washington, Los Angeles and New York, set a bonus scale that is 1.5 times the going market rate. Above the Law senior editor Staci Zaretsky writes that this is the fourth time the firm has beaten the market on bonuses since it opened four years ago.

Senior associates and those in the class of 2012 are in line for bonuses of $150,000.

Read the Above the Law article.

Jones Day has filed a motion seeking sanctions against plaintiffs who filed a $200 million lawsuit alleging that the law firm discriminates based on gender and motherhood, reports the ABA Journal.

The firm alleges in the sanctions motion that the plaintiffs made up the lawsuit’s pay-bias claims “out of whole cloth” and seeks their dismissal, writes the Journal‘s Debra Cassens Weiss. Jones Day also is seeking an order for the plaintiffs’ lawyers to pay fees and costs that the firm spent to litigate the motion.

Jones Day has claimed that the plaintiffs in the original suit wrongly assumed that female associates at the firm were paid less than their male counterparts.

Read the  ABA Journal article.

Above the Law has a report on BTI Consulting Group’s latest 2020 Client Service A-Team report — the report designed to show which law firms are tops in 17 different client-service-related activities.

The four basic categories considered in the survey include: understanding the client’s business, uniformity of service, dealing with unexpected changes, unprompted communication, and anticipating clients’ needs.

The article lists the 30 Biglaw firms that were mentioned most often across all categories, starting with Jones Day at the top of the list.

Read the Above the Law article.

Nine law firms face civil claims they aided and abetted a multimillion-dollar securities scam run by convicted fraudster Robert Shapiro through the now-defunct real estate investment firm Woodbridge Group of Cos., according to a Courthouse News Service report.

The suit, seeking $500 million inn general damages, describes a web of collusion with Woodbridge, through which Shapiro engineered a classic $1.3 billion Ponzi scheme that targeted the elderly and their retirement accounts, reports Courthouse News’ Maria Dinzeo.

Woodbridge, now in bankruptcy, is suing through its trustee.

The firms named as defendants are Halloran & Sage LLP, Robinson & Cole LLP, Finn Dixon & Herling LLP and Rome McGuigan P.C. of Connecticut; Balcomb & Green P.C. and Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP of Colorado; Bailey Cavalieri LLC of Ohio; and Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLC and Sidley Austin LLP of Illinois.

Read the Courthouse News article.

Bloomberg Law reports that Armstrong Teasdale LLP’s mandatory partner retirement policy doesn’t violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act because partners aren’t covered employees, the Eighth Circuit ruled, deciding a matter of first impression.

The court said equity partner Joseph S. von Kaenel wasn’t a firm “employee” when he was forced to retire at age 70.

The court relied on a precedential six-factor test for determining who is an employee, including whether the organization can fire the individual and set rules for the individual’s work, how much the employer supervises the work, and whether the individual shares in profits, explains Bloomberg’s Julie Steinberg.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Goodwin Proctor has announced an expanded paid parental leave policy for employees in its U.S. offices, reports Above the Law.

The new policy gives lawyers up to 18 weeks paid parental leave, while staff will be eligible to take at least 12 weeks. And birth mothers will be eligible to take at least six additional weeks of disability leave, according to the announcement sent to employees.

The firm also announced that lawyers will move to a flexible vacation policy, with no specified limit to the total number of vacation days in a calendar year.

Read the Above the Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that an Ohio attorney who was found guilty of a felony for helping clients try to evade federal taxes was suspended for two years by the state’s highest court.

The Ohio Supreme Court found that actions of Gregory Thomas Plesich violated professional ethics rules prohibiting lawyers from helping clients break the law and that he violated rules that forbid lawyers from committing acts that reflect adversely on the legal profession and from acting dishonestly.

Bloomberg Law’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione explains:

“Plesich deposited two checks from them totaling almost $200,000 into his client trust account in 2013. The money was not payment for legal services. He then wrote 29 checks from that account over the course of a year ranging in amounts from $3,000 to $7,500 to the wife.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Pittsburgh-based Biglaw firm K&L Gates has been steadily losing attorneys all year long, reports Above the Law, citing ALM Intelligence data.

The data show that “from December 2018 through October 2019, the firm lost a total of 96 partners, while only picking up 32 in that timeframe. That net decrease represents 7.9 percent of the total partnership. And across all attorneys, the firm is net down 56 lawyers.”

During that period the firm hired more associates than it lost — 164 hires and 154 departures.

Read the Above the Law article.

Smart lawyers find ways to get multiple uses out of their best marketing efforts by recycling their content in a variety of other formats, writes Amy Boardman Hunt for Muse Communications.

“Recycling your best content – particularly ‘evergreen’ content that’s not tied to a breaking news story, such as a court ruling or current event – can save you time and effort and give you valuable material that you can use for months or even years,” she explains.

She gives examples of ways to turn existing content into multiple formats and how to produce content that has lasting value.

Read the article.

Forbes reports that the national average annual wage of an lawyer is $144,230, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is not far from being three-times the average annual salary for all occupations, $51,960.

But Forbes contributor Andrew DePietro explains that average salary is for the U.S. overall, which hides significant differences depending on geography, from state to state.

For example, the average lawyer salary in California, $171,550, is about double the salary in Montana, which is $88,600.

The report lists average salaries for all states.

Read the article.

Another Biglaw firm has announced its bonus scales for associates, but this one adds something extra for those lawyers who put in the really long hours, reports Above the Law.

Schulte, Roth & Zabel announced a bonus scale that is in line with other Biglaw firms that have already announced. Associates in the classes of 2010-2012 will receive $100,000, while more recent hires can expect bonuses ranging from $15,000 to $90,000, depending on their length of service.

The firm will provide extra payouts of $20,000 or $40,000 to associates who hit billable-hour marks of 2,300 or 2,500 hours, respectively.

Read the Above the Law article.

Lawyers have long been a reliable source of campaign funds for Democratic presidential hopefuls. But the legal set’s political contributions haven’t been this blue since at least 2004, according to a report by Bloomberg Law, citing a study by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Lawyers and employees of the nation’s law firms have contributed nearly $17 million to presidential campaigns so far this election cycle, and 95 percent of the total has gone to Democrats, the study found.

President Trump’s campaign raised slightly more than $785,000 from lawyers and law firms.

The report quotes Maya Sen, a professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who co-authored a paper, “The Political Ideologies of American Lawyers”:

“Well-educated professions are very left-leaning at the moment. It’s a new dynamic in American politics. We really haven’t seen this before.”

Read the Bloomberg article.