1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Bill to create 66 new federal judgeships…

Judiciary

Bill to create 66 new federal judgeships advances

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2025, 1:56 pm CST

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would create 66 new federal judgeships.

The committee passed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act—also known as the JUDGES Act—“on a nearly party-line 16-11 vote,” Reuters reports.

The bill would stagger the new judgeships over more than a decade, Courthouse News Service reports. But President Donald Trump would get the first appointments.

The only Democrat supporting the bill was U.S. Rep. Lou Correa of California. The legislation would add 21 new federal judges in his state.

Former President Joe Biden vetoed a similar bill last year after Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives failed to approve the legislation until after Trump’s election.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California, said Wednesday approval is needed to address a “staggering” backlog of cases, according to Reuters.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. BigLaw firms set earnings expectations for…

Law Firms

BigLaw firms set earnings expectations for partners, create ‘super tiers’ to reward top performers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 31, 2024, 11:56 am CDT

As BigLaw firms focus more on metrics, many are setting earnings expectations for partners, according to legal recruiters who spoke with Law.com.

The amounts vary, but some examples are equity-partner expectations of at least $5 million to $7 million in business per year, Mike Parrillo, a recruiter in New York and founder of the Parrillo Search Group, told Law.com.

“Law firms are getting more serious about setting clear expectations on business and even specific benchmarks for certain partners,” Parrillo said. “This comes as firms are thinking more critically about how profitability should be shared.”

Kristin Stark, a firm consultant and a principal at Fairfax Associates, said some firms are using “super points” or creating “super tiers” to reward the highest performers.

“By virtue of a super tier existing, it is raising the bar for everyone,” Stark told Law.com.

Firms are getting strict about expectations in a quest to increase profits per equity partner, said Susan Mendelsohn, a Chicago-based legal recruiter, in an interview with Law.com.

“They want to be Am Law 10 or 15 or 20, so perhaps being more strict in increasing or enforcing those levels,” she said.

In November, when OpenAI unleashed the newest, most advanced version of its chatbot, ChatGPT, it immediately captured the imagination. As we’ve covered on this podcast, ChatGPT represents a major leap forward for generative artificial intelligence in that it can converse with and respond to users in a natural, almost humanlike way. So far, it’s been a hit.

ChatGPT boasts 100 million active monthly users after only two months, making it one of the fastest-growing applications ever, according to the Guardian. On March 14, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4—a more advanced version of the AI language model that was unveiled in November, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, others have quickly entered the field, as Google announced an advanced chatbot, Bard, last month, according to CNN; while several former OpenAI engineers have announced Claude, according to TechCrunch. The arms race in the advanced chatbot field has begun.

Some lawyers and law professionals have seen the potential for advanced chatbots to help supplement their work, allowing them to perform tasks more efficiently. One such area is legal research.

In that vein, Casetext launched CoCounsel earlier this month.

CoCounsel does not utilize the commercially available ChatGPT. Instead, its customized model was developed in a partnership with OpenAI and trained on the latest version of its GPT large language model—which means GPT4—as well as Casetext’s proprietary legal database and search system. CoCounsel functions as a legal assistant, helping users draft all sorts of legal documents. Users can utilize CoCounsel to help draft briefs, compose research memos, draw up contracts and analyze them, and write correspondence—all by typing their questions or requests into a prompt.

In this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, Jake Heller, the CEO and co-founder of Casetext, talks with the ABA Journal’s Victor Li about CoCounsel, as well as the potential of advanced chatbots to change the legal industry.

Heller, Pablo Arredondo and Laura Safdie, founded Casetext in 2013 and were 2017 ABA Journal Legal Rebels.

See also:

ABAJournal.com: “The Case for ChatGPT: Why lawyers should embrace AI”

ABAJournal.com: “Can ChatGPT help law students learn to write better?”

ABAJournal.com: “Techshow vendors relish return to exhibition floor amid ChatGPT buzz”