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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

HITCHED - Philadelphia's Duane Morris, with 800 lawyers, and Satterlee Stephens, a 65-attorney New York firm, have confirmed plans to merge, anticipating a combination by Feb. 1. Duane Morris chairman Matthew Taylor says the combined entity will have annual gross revenue of at least $530 million, Christine Simmons and Lizzy McLellan report.

TELL-ALL – Joseph Bondy, the attorney for Lev Parnas, says the ex-Rudy Giuliani associate wants to tell his story to Congress in an effort, partly, to mitigate any sentence he might receive in federal court, Tom McParland reports. Parnas is charged with federal campaign-finance violations and now is a prominent figure in the presidential impeachment inquiry. Bondy, who says federal prosecutors rebuffed his client's attempts to provide them with information, says Parnas is "trying very hard" to be a congressional witness at Trump's Senate impeachment trial scheduled to start next week.

FIRST – The country's first tribal law school is in its infant stages. Karen Sloan reports that officials at Arizona's Diné College, a Navajo institution, are considering plans to establish the law school at the college's main campus in Tsaile, Arizona. More than 100 tribal courts are in operation nationwide, with the largest concentrations in Alaska, Arizona, California and Oklahoma. The Navajo Nation's court system is by far the largest.

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EDITOR'S PICKS

What's Next? Drinking Chaperones at Your Law Firm?

Legal Profession Skeptical of AI Hiring Tools

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

BUILD OUT – Reed Smith is hiring eight lawyers—including five partners—from five rival firms for its Brussels office launch, Simon Lock reports. The new recruits for its global corporate practice are competition partners Christian Filippitsch, Geert Goeteyn and Isaeblle Rahman, who join from Norton Rose Fulbright, Shearman & Sterling and Sheppard Mullin respectively. Also joining are trade partner Yves Melin from Steptoe & Johnson and regulation partner Wim Vandenberghe, who joins from Deloitte Legal.

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WHAT YOU SAID

"It helps in my fight against being old, overweight and slow."

— Robert Gauss, partner at Ice Miller in Indianapolis, on the benefits of working out regularly.

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