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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

NEW ADMINISTRATION - Despite law firms' attempts at stealth layoffs, it's no secret that staff restructurings and layoffs are spreading during the pandemic. So what will law firm administrative roles look like when the dust clears? As Dan Roe reports, paralegals and legal assistants are among the most vulnerable positions right now, as attorneys become more autonomous while working remotely. The same can be said for file clerks, mail clerks and administrative and hospitality jobs tied to offices that, for many firms, may not be coming back. But that doesn't mean all law firm staff is endangered.  Among the most essential duties in the pandemic—those least likely to be outsourced or cut—are those that produce revenue or generate or maintain client relationships, such as business development and client intake specialists, competitive intelligence experts and data analysts, as well as diversity and inclusion professionals. "We're seeing positions being added that are looking at making sense of the data across a law firm so that firm leaders can make decisions based on facts as opposed to hunches," legal consultant and Calibrate Legal CEO Jennifer Johnson.

GIG 'EM, AGGIES -  When it comes to hiring, Texas A&M University appears to have growing cache among the state's largest law firms. In the seven years since Texas A&M bought the law school from Texas Wesleyan University, the bar exam pass rate has improved and the school has progressed up a noted national ranking of law schools, prompting Texas firms to do more recruiting at the law school located in Fort Worth, Brenda Sapino Jeffreys reports. Jessica Hammons, hiring partner at Thompson & Knight, credited the law school's staff and career services office for getting the school's name in front of firms like hers. Meanwhile, Dean Robert Ahdieh said many of the successes his school has seen so far are thanks to the undergraduate alumni now running law firms: "That is a piece of the puzzle. Most of those Aggie lawyers graduated from some other law school, but they [got their undergraduate degrees] from Texas A&M."

OVERTAXED -  Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom sued the United States onFriday in Colorado District Court on behalf of telecommunications conglomerate Liberty Global Inc.. The suit seeks to recover more than $100 million in federal income taxes as a deduction tied to the plaintiff's sale of Belgian telecom company Telenet Global Holding to its corporate parent. "Although LGI met all statutory requirements for claiming a Section 245A Deduction in connection with the TGH Transaction, Defendant takes the position that LGI should be denied the vast majority of its Section 245A Deduction because of 'interim-final' or 'temporary' Treasury Regulations issued in June 2019," the complaint alleges. "The Section 245A Temporary Regulations set forth new rules—not found in or supported by the statute—under which the Section 245A Deduction is disallowed." The case is 1:20-cv-03501, Liberty Global, Inc. v. USA. Stay up on the latest litigation with the new Law.com Radar.

EDITOR'S PICKS

After the Pandemic: What Will Law Firms Look Like When It's Over?