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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

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BY THE NUMBERS - Look for law firms' use of analytics to increase and improve in 2019. Reporter Roy Strom points to one new tool launched this year that analyzes the language of judges' opinions to tell litigators what cases they cite most often, why, and for what types of motions. That tool, say techie types, represents only the start of a new level of analysis, one that could enable clients to know how frequently certain lawyers craft arguments that judges use in their opinions. Such information, Strom reports, will guide clients in their outside counsel selection.

LEVITY - Oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court aren't known for their knee-slapping humor, but reporter Marcia Coyle has compiled some of this year's more entertaining exchanges among the justices and counsel appearing before them. Justice Stephen Breyer, for example, in one case seemed duly impressed with both sides—simultaneously: “When I read your briefs, I thought, 'absolutely right.”' And then I read through the other briefs, and I thought, 'absolutely right.' And you cannot both be absolutely right.”

SELFLESS - 'Tis the season of giving, so we thought this story appropriate: John Worden, a trial lawyer and partner at Schiff Hardin, donated his kidney to a stranger last month as part of a donation “chain” in which donors, who know someone needing a transplant but with whom they don't have a match, give their organs to strangers with whom they do match. Xiumei Dong reports that the San Francisco lawyer got the idea after his wife donated one of her kidneys to a friend of their daughter.

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EDITOR'S PICKS

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A Big Year for Intellectual Property Lateral Hires

Jewish Heirs' Worldwide Fight to Reclaim Nazi-Stolen Art Plays Out in Manhattan Courts

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

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JOLLY GOOD - Top management at U.K.-based Clifford Chance received 37.5 percent more in compensation in 2017-2018 compared with the prior year, according to the firm's latest limited liability partnership accounts filing, as required by law there. Hannah Roberts reports the accounts show that the 13 members of the Magic Circle firm's executive leadership group were paid a combined total of about $27.8 million. The firm reported that the results reflected “a third year of strong financial performance,” during which net profit had risen by more than 40 percent.

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WHAT YOU SAID

“I guess the person who I would say is my, hopefully not final, but most recent mentor is Bob Mueller, who's now gone on to greater fame.”

—  LESLIE CALDWELL, PARTNER AT LATHAM & WATKINS, WHO EARLIER IN HER CAREER WAS RECRUITED BY ROBERT MUELLER III TO WORK IN THE U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE IN SAN FRANCISCO, WHERE HE LED THE CRIMINAL DIVISION AND WAS HER  MENTOR.

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