On The Merits

Like most schools worried about academic integrity, the University of Chicago Law School used to discourage its first-year students from using generative AI but now it has crept into that first-year curriculum. Despite its overall inevitability, William Hubbard, a professor and deputy dean, says he's surprised by how often he has to encourage AI-skeptical law students to at least try it out. Hubbard's school has seen how law firms, and especially large law firms, have embraced this new technology and it's followed suit, adding several AI-focused classes to its course offerings. Hubbard says the University of Chicago's students need to graduate with at least a basic familiarity with AI—specifically when it is and isn't appropriate to use in a legal setting. He spoke to Bloomberg Law editor Jessie Kamens for our podcast, On The Merits, about what the legal industry wants law students to learn about AI and how his law school is going about teaching it. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The Big Four accounting firm KPMG has taken advantage of relaxed rules in Arizona to start a law firm there, but the company has broader ambitions outside of the state. KPMG says it doesn't want to compete with established players in the legal industry, but Big Law leaders are privately expressing concerns. That's according to Justin Henry, a Bloomberg Law reporter who's the guest on today's episode of our podcast, On The Merits. Henry talks about the legal work KPMG can do now and about the open question of whether it can operate outside of the Grand Canyon State. He also talks about the measures KPMG has taken to insulate its new law firm from the rest of its company, including having lawyers use separate entrances and exits at its Tempe, Ariz., office. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The largest law firms in the country are fiercely competitive, so it's notable when nearly 40 of them agree to sign on to a legal brief. That's what happened in an appellate case that could have eroded the attorney-client privilege—and the firms' lucrative white collar defense practices. They breathed a collective sigh of relief earlier this month when the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that would have forced FirstEnergy to turn over to its shareholders the results of internal investigations. The company hired Jones Day and Squire Patton Boggs to conduct the probes in response to a bribery scandal and later argued that the work was shielded by attorney-client privilege. On today's episode of our podcast, On The Merits, reporter Roy Strom explains what happened in this case and why it represented such a threat to Big Law. He also gets into the reasons lawyers' hourly rates for white collar defense work can climb so high. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Benjamin Klubes is a Big Law expat who just founded his own litigation-focused boutique firm—and he's not alone. Other former partners at larger law firms are now either moving to smaller litigation-only firms or, like Klubes, starting their own. In this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Klubes talks with Bloomberg Law reporter Tatyana Monnay about why he thinks these boutique firms are better suited to taking on the Trump administration than firms like Skadden, where he was a partner in the 2000s. "The issues that seemed to be driving a lot of Big Law capitulation were the transactional practices and the clients in those practices that believed that they were going to suffer as a result of retaliation by the Trump administration," he says. "That of course just isn't part of my practice or many boutique litigation practices." Klubes also says new technology, particularly AI, can mitigate some of the disadvantages of starting a small firm. "Document reviews are much more subject to technological innovation and reducing the need for a mass number of lawyers to be thrown at a case," he says. "AI can do it faster and typically, frankly, more efficiently." Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

If it wasn't already clear, it is now: well-capitalized investors want a piece of the US legal industry. The latest example of this trend came this week when the litigation funder Burford Capital announced that now, in addition to financing individual lawsuits, it also wants to buy minority stakes in entire law firms. This comes after the consulting giant KPMG won a license earlier this year to start its own legal practice in Arizona after the state loosened its rules on who can own firms. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporters Emily R. Siegel and Justin Henry talk about the ethical risks that may be involved here and about why companies like Burford and KPMG think investing in law firms could be so lucrative for them. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The allure of making partner doesn't hold the same appeal that it used to for many Big Law associates. Some of them are swallowing a pay cut to jump to a smaller firm. That's according to Major, Lindsey & Africa partner and recruiter Kate Reder Sheikh, who wrote about the trend for Bloomberg Law. She spoke to Bloomberg Law editor Jessie Kokrda Kamens for our podcast, On The Merits, about why some associates are forgoing the riches of partnership and exit the Big Law universe. "The pay is going to be half of Big Law," she said, "but it's very appealing to a lot of people to stay at a firm but be doing work that they're genuinely excited to get out of bed and do in the morning." Reder Sheikh also shared her thoughts on the shifting power balance at Big Law firms, the rise of nonequity partnerships, and whether junior lawyers should expect their firms to match Milbank LLP's summer bonuses. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

The law firm Norton Rose Fullbright thought it was taking a great leap forward when it brought on two partners and acquired the legal tech startup they co-founded, NMBL Technologies. Now, the firm and the startup are mired in a messy litigation battle against one another. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporters Alex Ebert and Evan Ochsner get into the unusual agreement these two parties made with each other and why it ended so poorly. They also talk about the myriad challenges in the race to get into the the legal tech space. "Law firms aren't afraid to get creative in this space, especially with AI," Ochsner says. "They're worried about getting left behind." Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

A wave of associate lawyers resigned in protest from their Big Law jobs earlier this year after their firms struck controversial pro bono deals with the Trump administration. Do they have any regrets? According to Bloomberg Law reporters Justin Henry and Elleiana Green, not really. They spoke with several former associates who say they stand by their decisions to, as one legal recruiter put it, "loudly quit." But that doesn't mean the road ahead will be easy. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, the two reporters talk about where these lawyers may land and whether they risk being blackballed from Big Law. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Fenwick & West's decision to seek equity in one of its tech startup clients is now, with the benefit of hindsight, looking like a stroke of genius. Figma Inc. last week had a blockbuster IPO and Fenwick made money not only advising its client on going public, but also through the firm's ownership of almost 900,000 shares in the design and collaboration software company, according to Bloomberg Law reporter Brian Baxter. The value of those shares more than tripled on July 31, Figma's first day of public trading. On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Baxter talks about why this type of non-traditional compensation model can make some law firms outside Silicon Valley a bit squeamish. He also talks about how, despite the huge potential upsides, there are financial and ethical risks when a firm owns a stake in its own clients. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Susman Godfrey has shown it's willing to take on high-risk, high-reward lawsuits with unconventional fee structures. Its leaders say this risk appetite is ingrained in the firm's culture. "When we vote to take a case, it is a case of the firm," Kalpana Srinivasan, a managing partner at the firm, said on our podcast, On The Merits. "You hear sometimes there may be other places where there are a couple of partners who are trying to do contingent work or doing something that may be different from the traditional financial model of that firm, and then the success or failure of that matter can be very much tied to that partner. We want to take on risk as a firm." Srinivasan and her co-managing partner, Vineet Bhatia, spoke to Bloomberg Law editor Jessie Kokrda Kamens about their firm's unique culture that shies away from lateral hires, and also about why they bristle at being described as a "litigation boutique." This conversation is a part of our Leading Law Firms project, in which we score law firms using more than just traditional metrics like a firm’s bottom line. Throughout this month, we’ve been sharing interviews with the leaders of other firms like McDermott Will & Emery, Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and DLA Piper. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.