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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

ELP WANTED? More than a dozen Am Law 200 law firms are operating without chief marketing officers, Patrick Smith reports. At some of those firms, the jobs have remained open for as long as 18 months. Consultants say that six months is about the length of time it should take to fill the position, and long delays can bring marketing momentum to a standstill. Nixon Peabody just filled its CMO position that's been open since the beginning of the year with the hire of Danielle Wuschke Paige.

MONEY IS MONEY – Quinn Emanuel says it's now accepting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, joining a handful of major law firms that say they accept digital currency. As Samantha Stokes reports, Quinn Emanuel said it accepted its first cryptocurrency payment last week using BitPay, a Georgia-based bitcoin payment service. The firm is not divulging the client's name. Other big firms that say they're onboard are Perkins Coie, Steptoe & Johnson and Frost Brown Todd.

TAXING SITUATION – U.S. House lawyers, DOJ lawyers and Trump attorneys this morning head to D.C. federal court over a dispute involving Trump's tax returns. The House Ways and Means Committee wants the returns from the IRS and the Treasury Department, which have refused to provide them. Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, will preside over the motion to dismiss filed by the IRS and the Treasury Department.

EDITOR'S PICKS

Attorney-Discipline Blogger Is Target of Defamation Suit

'Let's Motor Through, Chairman': How Big Law's Robert Luskin Guided Gordon Sondland

Newly Public Records Show Trump Placed Call to Former 'Apprentice' Contestant the Day of Alleged Sexual Assault

Association of Corporate Counsel Reveals New Board of Directors

Cannabis Compliance Tools Have an Audience—But Is It a Paying One?

 

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

FEWER – Locke Lord's Hong Kong office managing partner has joined Holman Fenwick Willan as a corporate finance partner, as the lawyer count dwindles at the Texas firm's outpost. John Kang reports that the departure of Wing Cheung, whose practice focuses on capital markets transactions, is one of several at Locke Lord, which has been steadily losing partners in recent years. The firm now has eight lawyers based in its Hong Kong office, down from 19 in 2016.

WHAT YOU SAID

"We have scenarios dealing with people having sex on the roof."

—  Michael Weinberg, executive director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at NYU law school, describing the real-life legal problems for in-house departments at technology companies, which will be reenacted by actors at an open mic night event in New York on Nov. 18.

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