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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS  –  At a time when competition is fierce but budgets are tight, law firms are having to balance the need to make necessary staff cuts with the need to fully or partially restore pay to professionals and attorneys who are at risk of being scooped up by rivals. But, just as importantly, firms are are having to figure out how to handle the messaging around those seemingly incongruous moves. As Dan Packel reports—and The American Lawyer's 2020 Midlevel Associates Survey recently showed us—the worst thing a firm leader can do when delivering news internally is try to tap-dance around the truth. "Generally speaking, law firm leaders have come to understand they normally have two roles. One is the cheerleader and the other is the business manager," said Zeughauser Group consultant Bruce McLean. "Here, you need to be straight up with partners and business professionals about what's going on and how you're going to deal with it. Transparency is absolutely important, even if that's different from the historic role of being a cheerleader."

I'M FINE WITH WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER – It goes without saying that this year's summer associates had a much different experience than any group that's come before them. But while it was far from ideal, it seems like most of this year's class appreciated firms' efforts to push forward with their programs in the throes of a pandemic that forced them to replace the typical swanky dinners and on-site training with Uber Eats gift cards and endless Zoom meetings. As Dylan Jackson reports, while respondents to The American Lawyer's 2020 Summer Associate Survey lamented the reduced pay and lack of real client work they experienced at some firms, a number of others applauded firms' attempts to deliver something approaching normality. "All things considered, I think that they pulled off the virtual summer very well," wrote an Am Law 50 summer in Virginia.

BRIGHAM BRINGS IN DEFENSE COUNSEL –  Brigham Young University is one of the latest institutions to be slapped with a class action by students who feel they overpaid for a lesser college experience once classes shifted online because of the pandemic. Now, the school has brought aboard Ray Quinney & Nebeker shareholders Samuel C. Straight and David M. Andersen to defend it. The suit, assigned to U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart, was filed August 5 in Utah District Court by Leeds Brown Law and Watton Law Group. "In short," the complaint says, "Plaintiffs and the members of the Class have paid for tuition for a first-rate education and an on-campus, in person educational experience, with all the appurtenant benefits offered by a first-rate university, and were provided a materially deficient and insufficient alternative, which alternative constitutes a breach of the contracts entered into by Plaintiffs and the Class with the University." Read the full complaints and stay up to date on major litigation nationwide with Law.com's Legal Radar.

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