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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

NO OFFICE, NO PROBLEM -  More and more Am Law 100 firms—including Perkins Coie, Husch Blackwell and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe—are starting to hire associates in markets outside their existing geographical footprints, spurred by the success of remote work over the past 15 months as well as the current cutthroat competition for top talent, Law.com's Dan Packel reports. "There are really outstanding talented lawyers and staff that may be out of geographies where we now have offices," said Siobhan Handle, chief talent officer at Orrick. "Tapping into that releases some of the intense pressure of being firm number six who's looking for a midlevel associate in a certain area, like New York or the Bay Area." But Andrew Glynn, a recruiter and managing director with Major, Lindsey & Africa's associate practice group, cautioned that there are risks for young lawyers who sign up to work for firms remotely. "If you're the junior associate working a couple thousand miles away from where the office is, it's really easy to let you go, as opposed to the associate who sits right next to the partner."

BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL - The wild carnival ride of U.S. business interruption litigation is about to wind its way through the state and federal appellate courts. But if you're hoping it will slow down and let you off any time soon so you can get your bearings and maybe buy a sno-cone, you're likely to be disappointed, Law.com's Amanda Bronstad reports. There are now 120 cases on appeal, in both state and federal courts, according to the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, who has maintained a COVID Coverage Litigation Tracker. Lawyers are closely watching cases before the Ohio Supreme Court, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Oklahoma Supreme Court, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals' Ninth Circuit and Eighth Circuit. Still despite all the appeals, Tom Baker, the Penn Law professor who manages the tracker, said it was "very unlikely" that both sides would get clarification soon. "It's going to take a long time to shake this out, and I'll be really surprised if this shakes out the same way," he said.

DANGEROUS APPS? - The parent companies of messaging apps Snapchat, YOLO and LMK were hit with a class action Monday in California Northern District Court alleging that the app-makers knowingly distributed products that were dangerous to teenage users. The lawsuit was brought by Eisenberg & Baum and Buche & Associates on behalf of the Tyler Clementi Foundation and the Estate of Carson Bride, a teen who took his own life after being subjected to online cyberbullying. "At all material times, Defendants knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care, should have known that the anonymity features on teen messaging apps that lack adequate safeguards pose serious danger of mental harm to teen users," the complaint alleges. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 3:21-cv-03473, Bride et al. v. Snap Inc. et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.

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