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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

BIGGER IN TEXAS – Shearman & Sterling is bringing aboard a Jones Day M&A group with at least three partners to launch a Dallas office. As Brenda Sapino Jeffreys reports, Shearman's advance into Texas, where it opened offices in Houston and Austin in 2018, is another example of intense interest among Big Law firms in the state's legal market. Jones Day was among the first non-Texas firms to establish a foothold in the state in the 1980s.

TALC TRIAL – A Johnson & Johnson talc case—the first phase of which before a different jury saw the company's closing argument by Weil's Diane Sullivan tossed by a judge after she  "denigrated" plaintiffs' counsel—has resulted in a $750 million verdict. As Amanda Bronstad reports, the judge is expected to reduce that verdict to $185 million. Four plaintiffs alleged in the New Jersey case that the company's product caused mesothelioma. More than a dozen other similar trials have ended with mixed verdicts.

QUARANTINED – Among the hundreds of Americans evacuated out of Wuhan this week amid the escalating coronavirus outbreak in China was Chunlin Leonhard, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Karen Sloan reports that Leonhard, who has shown no signs of illness, arrived back in the U.S. on Wednesday and is now under a two-week federally mandated quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. "People were scared," Leonhard said of those in Wuhan. "They were panicking."

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EDITOR'S PICKS

Appeals Court Vacates $50K Arbitration Award Against Ex-Trump Campaign Staffer Over NDA

Admissions Scandal at Texas Southern Law School Leads to President's Ouster

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

SHUT FOR NOW – Dentons has temporarily closed its Wuhan office, while law firms including Reed Smith and Orrick have advised all staff to avoid traveling to mainland China. As Hannah Roberts reports, Dentons is the only Western law firm with an office in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus. Seven lawyers work there, according to its website.

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WHAT YOU SAID

"My daughter expects a diverse experience wherever she goes."

— Benjamin Wilson, chairman of Beveridge & Diamond, on the assumptions held by millennials about diversity in the workplace.

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