A recent report by the Dallas Women Lawyers Association, titled Bridging the Gap: Practical Resources and Suggestions for Promoting and Retaining Female Attorneys in the Legal Profession, is a concise rundown of the challenges women lawyers face and how to address them, according to Amy Boardman Hunt of Muse Communications.

She says the report illustrates two important points:

1) the legal profession has a long way to go to reach anything close to gender parity, and;

2) it is incumbent on women lawyers to help close the gap, both by advocating for systemic changes in the profession and by engaging in the kind of strategic self-promotion that can position them to make those changes happen.

Read the article.

The scorched earth legal battle over the Cellino & Barnes law firm has escalated, with one of the partners threatening to “burn the place to the ground,” according to court papers.

The New York Daily News reports that Stephen Barnes argued that his estranged partner Ross Cellino’s effort to dissolve the firm spells “financial suicide” for both of them, according to documents filed last week in a Buffalo court.

“The move, Barnes says in papers, would kill one of the most successful personal injury firms in the country,” writes reporter Stephen Rex Brown. “The Buffalo-based firm will earn Cellino and Barnes $12 million each in 2017 alone, papers say.”

Read the NY Daily News article.

Husch Blackwell has announced the firm is conducting layoffs among partners and counsel, reports Above the Law and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

No associates will be impacted by the cuts, sources tell the publications.

Greg Smith, the firm’s CEO, and Maurice Watson, the chairman, issues a statement:

“With retirements and other year-end transitions, approximately 40 attorneys, all partners or counsels, are expected to leave the firm. Such departures are offset, in part, by new attorney hires throughout the year, and our firm had a net increase of 12 attorneys for the 12-month period ending October 31, 2017. Given our firm’s size and scale, these attorney transitions are expected and normal.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Mercedes Colwin, managing partner of Gordon & Rees’s New York office and Fox News analyst, apologized for saying on a broadcast that women who claim to be victims of sexual harassment and assault usually do so for money, but she lost her management role anyway.

Newsweek reports that Colwin apologized on Twitter, saying she hadn’t meant to “trivialize or minimize the impact of sexual harassment on any victims. … I did not mean to imply, nor do I believe, that the victims of sexual assault within society are ‘very few and far between.”

Above the Law quoted from the firm’s statement: “The partner in question has voluntarily stepped down from all management roles within the firm and she is committed to rectifying the hurtful impressions created by her remarks.”

The firm’s statement also says:

[T]he organization in no way endorses or agrees with any statements which could even remotely be interpreted as minimizing or trivializing the seriousness and gravity of sexual harassment or similarly predatory behaviors, and we renounce them in the strongest possible terms – in fact, contrary to what may have been inferred from what was said during the telecast, the sad reality is that the number of women who likely have not been exposed to such repugnant conduct over the course of their personal or professional lives is, unfortunately, few and far between.

Read the Newsweek article.

Bloomberg Law reports that law firm performance dropped off in the third quarter, as demand softened and collections started to lengthen, according to a new report by the Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group.

The survey of 183 law firms found that revenue growth fell to 3.6 percent through the first three quarters, down from 3.7 percent at this time last year, writes Gabe Friedman. A Citi senior senior advisor said that the growth was driven by increased billing rates, and not demand or other factors, which may not bode well for law firms.

He also said that law firms increased billing rates by an average of four percent. That increase compares to a 3.2 percent rise at this time last year. It is more typical to see a 3 to 3.5 percent increase in billing rates, he said.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Law firm Locke Lord has received the largest fine ever levied by the profession’s U.K. regulatory body, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, reports The Global Legal Post.

“The firm has to pay £500,000 [$654,632] after accepting four allegations of misconduct, including acting with a lack of integrity, the first time a law firm has admitted to this,” according to the report.

The firm failed to supervise a lawyer involved in transactions showing signs of irregular financial arrangements or investment schemes, the regulatory body alleged.

On its website, the Dallas-based firm says it has offices across the United States, as well as in Hong Kong and London.

Read the Global Legal Post article.

Above the Law is reporting that Foley & Lardner is in merger talks with Texas firm Gardere Wynne Sewell.

“When you consider that Gardere just last month took on Bufete Hernández Romo, a Mexico City commercial arbitration and litigation boutique, it seems Foley might be very interested in moving into the hopping Texas and Mexico markets, both areas where the 19-office Foley has no presence today,” writes Joe Patrice.

The reporter points out that Foley has seen a couple of big-ticket merger attempts fail during the past few years.

Read the Above the Law article.

A pair of lawsuits allege two Florida law firms failed to pay administrative workers proper overtime wages in compliance with the Fair Labor Standard Act, reports Above the Law.

Reporter Kathryn Rubino explains: “Brandi Durrett, a case manager, is suing personal injury firm The Disparti Law Group and its founder, Lawrence Disparti over unpaid overtime wages. Jayne Hinkle, an office manager, is making similar claims against The Jodat Law Group and partner Gary Jodat.”

Plaintiffs claim their employers would use various methods to circumvent overtime compensation requirements.

Read the Above the Law article.

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Some general counsel are starting to push back against big law firms charging $400 an hour for the work of associates, writes Joe Patrice for Above the Law.

Patrice quotes from an Am Law Daily report on a recent summit:

At a Manhattan conference on legal innovation this month, Mark Smolik, the general counsel of DHL Supply Chain Americas, had a message for the law firm representatives in his audience.

“Sorry, law firms. You spend on the training,” Smolik said. “I cannot afford to pay your associates $325 an hour.”

Smolik warned the group that he could hire those associates himself and “pick them up right out of law school.”

Read the Above the Law article.

Above the Law reports that Hogan Lovells recently decided to offer “voluntary retirement” packages to about 400 of its senior business support staff members in the U.S.

Staci Zaretsky writes that those who have been with the firm for at least five years were offered an out, and it’s expected that 5 to 10 percent of those who received the offer will take it.

“In addition to the hundreds of voluntary buyouts Hogan Lovells is offering to business staff members here in America, the firm is set to cut up to 90 jobs in London thanks to a recent restructuring,” Zaretsky adds.

Read the Above the Law article.

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Burford’s 2017 Litigation Finance Survey shows that litigation finance continues to achieve dramatic growth, finding that the use of litigation finance in the United States grew by 28% from last year, to 36%. And it has grown 414% since 2013.

Among respondents in the US, UK and Australia, a majority of users (59%) say their use of litigation finance has increased in the last two years.

A strong majority (72%) of all respondents agree that litigation finance is a growing and increasingly important area of the business of law—and, notably, 40% of US companies report having foregone claims due to the cost of litigation.

Pointing to continued growth on the horizon, among all respondents whose organizations have not yet used litigation finance, a majority of law firm respondents (57%) and nearly half of in-house respondents (49%) are likely to consider its use in the next two years.

Some early concerns about litigation finance have evaporated. For example, in the US, the number of in-house respondents with concerns about litigation finance leading to unnecessary litigation fell to 10% from 81% five years ago. Among all respondents, ethical concerns rank dead last among obstacles to use, at 9%.

Only 7% of all respondents are unfamiliar with litigation finance, and only 4% of law firm respondents.

Christopher Bogart, Burford’s CEO, commented: “Burford’s latest research affirms our own experience: More and more often, clients and law firms are turning to litigation finance as a solution to some of the intractable challenges and pressures of managing legal cost and risk, and that strong demand is driving dramatic growth.”

Burford’s 2017 Litigation Finance Survey was conducted by ALM Intelligence, the research arm of ALM Media, publisher of The American Lawyer, from May 17 to June 16, 2017. The full report is available online.

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Above the Law follows up on an earlier report on the disparity of benefits offered to staff members of big law firms, compared to those offered to lawyers, this time with a focus on family leave.

“There’s a reason, grounded in scarcity and specialization, to pay attorneys more than the staff,” writes Joe Patrice. “But there’s not much reason why an attorney needs more time to bond with a newborn than someone in human resources would. Perhaps the firm knows that its associates are so socially dysfunctional they need an extra several weeks to seem human? That’s certainly a colorable argument.”

The article points out that some firms avoid the attorney-staff disparity by making benefits equal.

Read the Above the Law article.

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Bloomberg BNA will host an event in San Francisco dedicated to understanding, preparing for, and benefiting from spin-offs.

The complimentary event will be Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, 1:30-6 p.m., in Bloomberg’s San Francisco office at 3 Pier #101.

With a record $250.9 billion of spin-offs completed globally in 2015 and fairly steady activity since then, understanding this type of corporate restructuring and the hidden challenges to overcome are essential for senior executives.

Participants will hear in-depth conversations about:

• Trends in spin-off activity and important market perspectives
• Investor engagement opportunities to consider
• Cross-functional challenges and opportunities

The event is sponsored by Baker McKenzie.

Speakers will be Sergio Letelier, Vice President, Office of the General Counsel’s Corporate, M&A and Ventures Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise; and Jeff Marks, Managing Director, Corporate Finance Advisory, J.P. Morgan.

Register for the event.

While Big Law firms with Houston offices are still in recovery mode from Hurricane Harvey, many firms with downtown offices were spared the worst of the record-breaking storm’s damage, reports Bloomberg Law.

Reporter Stephanie Russell-Kraft quotes Kenneth Broughton, managing partner of Reed Smith’s Houston office: “I would say a fairly high percentage of attorneys live either downtown or within 15 or 20 minutes from downtown, and most of those areas were not flooded.”

Broughton said he has been in the office for most of the week, and the Houston office will be re-opened on Tuesday.

The report also covers storm response at Baker Botts and Andrews Kurth.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

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A survey of 125 law professionals reveals that 94 percent of law firms are focused on being more efficient, but the findings within this survey indicate that only a small group of opportunistic law firms are actually executing on this focus, leading to new business opportunities for their practices.

The Exterro survey is available for downloading at no cost.

This benchmarking report discusses how this small subset of innovative law firms are beating their competition by redefining their legal processes to increase client satisfaction and revenue.

The report includes:

• 36-page comprehensive report filled with key insights on how law firms are currently managing their business.
• Insight into key topics which include how law firms are managing their legal processes, the future of legal operations and more…
• Example of one interesting stat: Compared to 5 years ago, 51% of law firms are more focused on legal project mgmt. principles and technology.

Download the report.

Aaron Davis, a partner in the Minneapolis law firm Patterson Thuente, was placed on leave after the firm learned that Davis owned a neo-Nazi record label.

Minneapolis City Pages lists some of the albums and songs on Davis’ Behold Barbarity Records and Distro, including “Kill the Jews” and “At the Dawn of a New Aryan Empire.”

In a post on the Above the Law site, Elie Mystal offers some commentary: “There are a lot of things you can do while being a neo-Nazi. You can start your own record label. You can buy tiki torches, freely and without prior restraint. But a private employer has no duty to hire you so you can menace the people you work with your genocidal views.”

Read the City Pages article.

Read the Above the Law article.

Some high-profile members of the Donald Trump circle found out the hard way recently that they somehow had missed one of the basic rules for dealing with the media.

In a post on the website of Muse Communications, Amy Boardman Hunt offers a reminder about the First Rule of Dealing with the Media: Assume you are on the record.

“If you want your discussion to be off the record, i.e. the information can’t be used or attributed to you, you must establish that by mutual agreement before the information is relayed. If the reporter doesn’t agree to make the information off the record, it’s not off the record,” she explains.

Read the article.

Several large law firms have spoken out against President Trump’s remarks following the Charlottesville violence, denouncing the president for casting blame on both sides and making a moral equivalency between Nazis and those who opposed them, reports Above the Law.

Reporter Staci Zaretsky writes that those firms include Skadden Arps, Paul Weiss, Lowenstein Sandler, Wachtell Lipton, WilmerHale, Polsinelli, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, Crowell & Moring, Latham & Watkins, Hogan Lovells, Akin Gump, and Greenberg Traurig.

Read the Above the Law article.

It’s no secret that gender parity is lagging in the legal profession, with women making up just 18 percent of equity partners, according to the National Association for Law Placement, writes Amy Boardman Hunt for Muse Communications.

In the article, she discusses the practice of amplification: when a woman makes a key point, other women repeat it, giving credit to its author.

She writes that amplification is like a team sport: “Even better, for women who are reluctant to promote themselves, you can rest easy knowing that amplification isn’t tooting your own horn. Instead, you’re promoting other women (who, per your agreement, are promoting you in return).

Read the article.

David Lat of Above the Law writes about a BigLaw firm’s move back from providing financial transparency.

“K&L Gates, a firm that has long prided itself on financial transparency, is now moving in the opposite direction. After four consecutive years of publicly posting its financial statements, the firm has closed the gates on such disclosure,” he explains.

He reached out to the firm, which responded that K&L Gates did not issue a press release about its 2016 financial results, but instead provided that information directly to Am Law for its rankings. Lat points out that the AM Law 100 report is not as comprehensive as full financial statements.

Read the Above the Law article.