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3. 59 partners leave A&O Shearman outside Asia…

Layoffs

59 partners leave A&O Shearman outside Asia since decision to trim 10% of equity partnership

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 28, 2025, 3:19 pm CDT

Twenty-five U.S. partners are among the 59 partners who left A&O Shearman since its decision last year to trim 10% of its global equity partnership, according to a count by Law.com.

The count does not include 15 partners who left A&O Shearman in Asia, as previously reported by Law.com. Butit does include partners who left in the United States, London, Europe, Africa and Australia.

A&O Shearman said last year the partner cuts were “a difficult but necessary step forward” following the merger between Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. About 45 partners who left joined other law firms.

A&O Shearman said it currently has around 800 partners worldwide, which is about the same number that it had when it announced the cuts. It is unclear why the current number isn’t lower, according to Law.com.

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3. Accent stereotypes can influence judgments…

Criminal Justice

Accent stereotypes can influence judgments about guilt, study finds

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 27, 2025, 12:55 pm CST

A British study has found that people with accents linked to higher social status were generally judged less likely to commit crimes.

Working-class accents, on the other hand, were more likely to be associated with criminality, according to a Jan. 16 press release here and a Jan. 17 press release here.

“This shows that perceived social class, as judged from a speaker’s accent, is an important predictor of U.K. listeners’ expectations about behavior, and this might have serious implications in the criminal justice system,” said Alice Paver of the University of Cambridge, the lead study author, in one of the press releases.

Frontiers in Communication published the study, conducted by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University.

Courthouse News Service and the Guardian have coverage.

The researchers asked 180 English-speaking people throughout the United Kingdom to listen to recordings of 10 male voices with differing regional accents. The participants were then asked to rate the voices on social traits, such as “educated,” “rich,” “working class,” “trustworthy” and “friendly.”

They were also asked to rate the voices on 10 behaviors that included crimes: “return a lost wallet to its owner,” “stand up for someone who is being harassed,” “cheat on a romantic partner,” “lie on their CV,” “report a relative to the police for a minor offense,” “drive dangerously,” “physically assault someone,” “shoplift,” “touch someone sexually without consent” and “vandalize a shop front.”

The standard southern British English accent was rated highly for status traits, such as intelligent educated and rich. The Liverpool, London and Newcastle accents were most associated with working class, followed by the Bradford accent.

Liverpool, Newcastle and Bradford accents were associated with aggressive behavior, while the standard southern British English accent was deemed least aggressive.

There was a strong correlation between status traits and ethical behaviors, such as returning a lost wallet to its owner, and a slightly stronger association between status traits and the morally ambiguous behavior of reporting a relative to police for a minor offense.

But there was a negative correlation between status traits and criminal behaviors.

Speakers with the standard southern British English accent were deemed least likely to behave in criminal ways, with the exception of committing a sex offense. Non-English accents associated with the two cities of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Glasgow, Scotland, were also thought to be less likely to engage in crime.

The London and Liverpool speakers, on other hand, were deemed most likely to engage in morally bad behaviors, while the Liverpool and Bradford speakers were rated most likely to engage in criminal behaviors.

“These findings emphasize the fact that people carry with them their stereotyped judgments about accents when making attributions of guilt and this has serious implications for the criminal justice system,” study authors wrote. “Prejudice in the criminal justice system can come from many factors, but unlike some types, for example racial prejudice, voice or accent-based prejudice is not currently something that jurors may be aware of or warned against letting it sway their decisions.”

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3. Anti-abortion princess explains her friendship…

U.S. Supreme Court

Anti-abortion princess explains her friendship with Justice Alito after he discloses $900 gift

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 23, 2024, 12:18 pm CDT

A German princess has said she first met U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito at a Catholic conference while summering in Rome.

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, whose primary home is a 500-room palace, told the New York Times that she was introduced to Alito by a priest who is a mutual acquaintance. She couldn’t recall the exact date, but the New York Times said Alito was in Rome for a 2018 event sponsored by a law school.

Princess Gloria said she immediately liked Alito and his “very fun, bubbly” wife, so she invited them to a music festival in which she opens her palace to guests.

“I met him as a Catholic, and I realized that he’s a judge who is pro-life,” Princess Gloria told the New York Times. That was a great thing, she said, “because very few people I know are pro-life.”

The Alitos stayed in the palace when they attended the music festival in 2023; the accommodation does not have to be disclosed. The festival included a performance of “The Magic Flute” and a concert by a Michael Jackson tribune band. Princess Gloria also obtained tickets for the Alitos to attend a music festival celebrating the work of German composer Richard Wagner.

Alito valued the gift of concert tickets at $900.

Princess Gloria was once dubbed “Princess TNT” for being a “wild version” of Princess Diana of Wales, a member of the British royal family, according to the New York Times. In her younger days, she sported a multicolored mohawk and rode motorcycles. She became more religious after her husband died in 1990.

The 64-year-old princess is now “an anti-abortion and anti-immigration provocateur” with “ties to the European far right,” the New York Times said.

Princess Gloria toured the Supreme Court in 2019 and posed with Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. With her on the tour were the president of a nonprofit that opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage and a “right-wing German cardinal,” according to the New York Times.

She said she isn’t political, however.

“The only thing that I care about in politics is that somebody is fighting abortion and helping reproduction rates go up,” she told the New York Times. “I think that killing our own offspring and reducing our reproduction rates, eventually, we will kill our own kind.”

Hat tip to How Appealing.

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3. 2 BigLaw firms ‘fighting it out in the lateral…

Law Firms

2 BigLaw firms ‘fighting it out in the lateral market’ vote to merge

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 9, 2024, 3:32 pm CDT

Partners at Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders and Locke Lord have voted to merge effective Jan. 1, 2025.

The new law firm will be called Troutman Pepper Locke, according to press releases here and here and stories by Law.com, Law360 and Bloomberg Law.

The combined firm will have more than 1,600 lawyers in 33 U.S. offices and two European offices in London and Brussels.

The firm’s new chair will be Tom Cole, chair of Troutman Pepper. Troutman Pepper Locke’s current revenues would give it a No. 28 ranking in the Am Law 100 list of top-grossing firms, according to a fact sheet.

The firms confirmed merger talks in April. Partners approved the merger Sept. 5.

Legal consultant Kent Zimmermann of the Zeughauser Group told Law360 that he proposed the merger early this year in his role as an adviser at Troutman Pepper.

Both firms were “fighting it out in the lateral market” because they both focus on the same six industry sectors, Zimmermann said.

“I would call it the most strategic law firm recombination in recent memory,” he told Law360.

According to a press release, the firms share practice strengths in industries that include energy, financial services, health care and life sciences, insurance and reinsurance, private equity and real estate.

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3. Another BigLaw firm announces merger—third…

Law Firms

Another BigLaw firm announces merger—third in week’s time

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 10, 2024, 3:00 pm CDT

Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie announced Tuesday that they will merge Jan. 1, 2025, to create “a powerhouse firm” of more than 1,300 lawyers.

The combined law firm will have 29 offices in 15 states and Washington, D.C., and will have the “strategic advantage” of Womble Bond Dickinson’s eight offices in the United Kingdom, according to a Sept. 10 press release.

Law.com, Reuters, Bloomberg Law and Law360 have coverage.

The two firms have a combined revenue of more than $742 million, which would give the merged firm a ranking of No. 70 on the American Lawyer’s list of top-grossing firms.

Womble Bond Dickinson has about 640 lawyers in the United States and 450 in the United Kingdom, a spokesperson told Law.com. Lewis Roca has about 220 lawyers.

The combination “will deepen Womble’s presence” in the Southwest and the Mountain West while extending Lewis Roca’s reach to regions that include the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, according to the press release.

The combined firm will operate as Womble Bond Dickinson and will be led by Merrick Benn, who was slated to become the U.S. chair and CEO of the larger firm in January.

“Both of our firms recognize there’s a need to build scale, to have a deeper bench, in order to provide the type of legal services that our clients need, both in terms of skill set and also geographical reach,” Benn told Bloomberg Law in an interview.

The planned combination is the third BigLaw merger announced in less than a week. Partners at Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders and Locke Lord approved a merger Sept. 5. On Sept. 9, Ballard Spahr and Lane Powell said they will merge.

Jordan Abshire, founder of Abshire Legal Search, a legal consulting company, told Bloomberg Law that firms are feeling pressure to reach clients in more geographical locations.

“Clients have been consolidating their outside counsel relationships largely in an effort to get volume discounts by giving more work to a smaller number of firms,” Abshire said.

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Law Firms

Dechert will pay millions of dollars to settle ‘hack-for-hire’ allegations stemming from ex-partner’s work

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2024, 10:54 am CST

Dechert has agreed to pay $3.8 million plus costs to settle claims in the United Kingdom that a former London partner conspired to hack and release the emails of a client’s opponent.

The costs have not yet been determined, but they are about $11 million, bringing the total to nearly $15 million, according to Farhad Azima, the aviation executive who said his email was hacked.

Law360 and Bloomberg Law have coverage.

A spokesperson for Azima told Law360 that he has also resolved his claims against the former partner, Neil Gerrard, as part of the U.K. settlement. But the settlement does not resolve Azima’s a RICO suit against Dechert and Gerrard in the United States, according to Bloomberg Law and Law360. A motion to dismiss that federal lawsuit is pending in the Southern District of New York.

Gerrard was global co-chair of Dechert’s white-collar and securities litigation practice before his retirement in 2020.

Azima has alleged that his emails were hacked and released to reporters in a bid to silence his complaints about human rights abuses by Dechert client Ras Al Khaimah, one of the United Arab Emirates. Azima alleges that he was the victim of a “massive hack-for-hire operation” orchestrated by Girardi, according to Law360.

Dechert said there was no admission of liability in connection with the U.K. settlement.

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Chantelle Jalland, a London-based managing director for digital investigations and discovery with J.S. Held, a global consulting company.

They discussed how the approach to digital investigations and e-discovery has evolved over the past decade, the types of litigation matters in which alternative legal services are the most appropriate, and how generative AI will affect digital investigations and discovery.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your role at J.S. Held.

Chantelle Jalland: I qualified as a solicitor in Australia and moved to the U.K. about 15 years ago. For the last 11½ years, I worked at Herbert Smith Freehills in its e-discovery department, serving teams in London, New York and Sydney, and helping them work more seamlessly and efficiently. I moved to J.S. Held in November 2023, and a big part of my role is to grow the digital investigations and discovery practice in EMEA by focusing on a wider range of matters with law firms and corporate legal departments.

Ari Kaplan: How has the approach to digital investigations and e-discovery evolved over the past decade?

Chantelle Jalland: It has changed significantly. Aside from eliminating most paper files in e-discovery, it is much easier to persuade lawyers to use technology-assisted review as a standard practice. They are more aware of litigation support practices and recognize the value of these tools. The question has changed from whether to use them to which tools to deploy, so our advice is
becoming more complex as we concentrate on the process and aligning the technology to optimize it.

Ari Kaplan: How do the differences in the litigation processes between the U.K. and the U.S., among other jurisdictions, affect the e-discovery approach in each region?

Chantelle Jalland: I think that the processes between Australia and the U.S. are much more distinct than those between the U.K. and the U.S., which have several similarities. Of course, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the U.S. differ from the Civil Procedure Rules in the U.K., but fundamentally, people want to cooperate. A decade ago, there were more tactics in the U.K. associated with disclosure, but today, the parties recognize the value of collaboration and cooperation. When it comes to production, the focus is on risk reduction, a shared concern in the U.S. and the U.K. In Australia, however, they apply bizarre methods in disclosure exercises by converting all ingested data to PDF versions, which materially increases the total volume of data, which can be quite wasteful and leads to concerns about sustainability. Data storage costs money, and legal teams should minimize the set to what they need to reduce risk and expense. There is a shift in Australia, which is issuing production protocols that are more consistent with the processes in the U.K. and the U.S.

Ari Kaplan: For what types of litigation matters are alternative legal services the appropriate solution?

Chantelle Jalland: I cannot think of any matter where you should not consider the use of alternative legal services. They can save so much time and money that they can be a transformative option in litigation of any size.

Ari Kaplan: Have client expectations of legal technology deployment changed?

Chantelle Jalland: Yes, particularly since most clients are technologically savvy and are very familiar with many of the tools available to them. They are also demanding more value for their money and are thinking much more about the pathway to an outcome, rather than the number of billable hours required to obtain a given result. We need to approach litigation more efficiently and adjust our strategies to meet or exceed heightened client expectations. If you can provide answers more quickly and cheaply, or more effectively and efficiently than a peer, you will obtain a competitive advantage. It is, therefore, imperative to develop creative ways to deliver complex services, and technology is central to that paradigm because skilled teams can distinguish which technology to apply to what problems.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see generative AI affecting digital investigations and discovery?

Chantelle Jalland: Generative AI will affect both the e-discovery process itself through integrations within all of the common platforms and by changing the way lawyers address litigation. It is already part of or being integrated into a number of the leading document review platforms, so over the next year, we will see more experimentation and deployment. As it becomes more mainstream, we will see less reluctance to deploy it in a broad range of cases. Everyone seems to be using it in some form, and most people recognize common limitations, so we need not persuade teams to test it. It will become another tool but not a replacement for talented practitioners. As more tools help summarize case judgments and documents, it will free professionals to work on the more interesting aspects of their matters, rather than time-consuming tasks for which AI is better suited. Instead, they will leverage verified AI-generated summaries and concentrate on creative strategy and dynamic advocacy.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.