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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

FAREWELL – U.K.-based Holman Fenwick Willan has hired Locke Lord's entire Hong Kong team, leaving questions about the future of the Texas firm's office in the Asian financial center. John Kang reports that a total of nine lawyers and paralegals are making the move, following former Locke Lord Hong Kong office managing partner Wing Cheung, who joined Holman Fenwick earlier this month. The team focuses on corporate finance deals, mergers and acquisitions, private equity and other Hong Kong law transactions work.

NOPE - A brief to a California appeals court that twice referred to the trial judge in the case as "attractive" has prompted an appellate panel to turn the situation into what it said was a "teachable moment," Alaina Lancaster reports. In an underlying defamation suit, Keith Chow and his lawyer Jan Stanley Mason wrote that now-Associate Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer, who was an L.A. trial judge at the time, was "an attractive, hard-working, brilliant, young, politically well-connected judge on a fast track." The appeals court said in an opinion on Friday written by Associate Justice Brian Currey that it would be remiss to not address the comments as "irrelevant and sexist," adding that "[s]uch comments would not likely have been made about a male judge."

ROBOTS – Artificial intelligence is reviewing job applications, and companies that use it may be vulnerable to lawsuits, Victoria Hudgins writes. Reports are growing that some algorithms utilized to check career and education history are coded with biased data that could foster discrimination in hiring, housing and loan approval.

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EDITOR'S PICKS

Brown Rudnick Faces $300M Malpractice Suit Over Botched Bankruptcy Claim

Crowell's Dwyer to Head Leadership Council on Legal Diversity

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

NEW LEADER – Hogan Lovells' board has lined up Miguel Zaldivar to replace outgoing CEO Steve Immelt. Varsha Patel reports that the board unanimously recommended the Hong Kong-based finance partner and Asia-Pacific and Middle East chief executive as Immelt's successor. The recommendation is subject to a partnership vote, the outcome of which is expected in favor of Zaldivar, who would start his four-year term in July.

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WHAT YOU SAID

"Suddenly, it's not in your interest anymore, and now you're wiggling around to find some way to squirm out of the agreement."

—  William Alsup, U.S. District judge in San Francisco, rebuking DoorDash for trying to get out of its own arbitration agreement as thousands of its delivery drivers pursue individual arbitration against the company.

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