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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE  - There may be greater attention being paid to diversity and inclusion recently, but most GCs are still failing to ask their outside counsel a crucial question: how do they decide who gets origination credit? As Dan Clark reports, if in-house leaders don't inquire as to how credit is awarded at the law firms they use, the firms will have little to no incentive to change policies and systems that are often unfair to women and minorities. The good news is diversity & inclusion professionals, as well as in-house lawyers, told Clark that clients are slowly beginning to realize how much power they hold in their relationships with outside counsel, making them far less reluctant to broach topics like origination credit. In fact, for some in-house leaders, a willingness to have those conversations has become an expectation. "I would be very put off by someone who is refusing to go into a discussion about that [origination credit]," said Michele Coleman Mayes, chief legal officer of the New York Public Library. "I think most firms are savvy enough to include it. You have a fair amount of leverage when you are trying to decide if you are going to form a partnership with this firm."

FOR YOUR HEALTH - Law firms saw a drop in costs tied to health care claims this year, as fewer employees visited doctor's offices or had elective medical procedures during the pandemic. Now, benefits experts have a message for those firms: don't get used to it. As Andrew Maloney reports, there's a good chance employees' health care claims could return to pre-pandemic levels. Butler Snow COO Rance Sapen said that after an initial drop-off in claims at his firm, people began seeking care again later in the year, prompted by local advances in telemedicine and firm messaging that encouraged employees to continue healthy practices. He said he expects 2021 to look less like 2020 and more like 2019, as far as claim numbers go. In fact, Aon, a global professional services firm, concluded exactly that in a September report. "Therefore, law firms and other employers increasingly need to consider cost-management strategies to maintain the value of their health care programs without further shifting costs to participants," the report said.

NEW ADMISSIONS - Hogan Lovells partners Neal Katyal and Peter Spivack, along with senior associates Michael J. Zubrow and Jo-Ann Sagar, have stepped in to defend Yale University in an admissions bias suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit, initiated October 8 in Connecticut District Court, contends that Yale's admissions policies unlawfully discriminate against Asian and White students. Day Pitney is also providing counsel to Yale. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Charles S Haight Jr., is 3:20-cv-01534, USA v. Yale University. Stay up on the latest litigation with the new Law.com Radar.

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