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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

GLASS HOUSES? - In-house legal department leaders have been among the most vocal advocates for diversity in the legal profession, in some instances aggressively pushing their outside counsel to make improvements in that regard. But how many law department leaders have been applying that level of scrutiny and accountability to their own diversity efforts? According to a new survey, not nearly as many as one might hope. As Law.com's Hugo Guzman reports, the study, by Major, Lindsey & Africa and the Association of Corporate Counsel, found that only 29% of legal departments surveyed track internal diversity. Of those doing so, just under half have plans to improve diversity in their departments. Greg Richter, vice president for Retained Search and Advisory Services at Major Lindsey, said he had expected those numbers to be far higher. "Especially given the client space and conversations we're having, I would think the vast majority of companies and law departments have a plan to increase diversity," Richter said. "That's the beauty of the anonymized data. People will be honest, and give you the hard truth." Richter did note, however, that diversity comes up more often than such statistics would indicate when Major Lindsey is called upon to assist and advise with new hiring.

M&A ALL DAY - For mid-level corporate associates who are running themselves into the ground but getting paid a boatload to do it, we have good news and bad news: the absolute firehose blast of deal work law firms are experiencing right now probably has to slow down eventually, but corporate and private equity executives don't see that happening any time soon. As Law.com's Patrick Smith reports, a joint survey conducted by Mergermarket and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which assessed the market outlooks for U.S. mergers and acquisitions work from 75 private equity and 75 corporate executives, found that everybody sees more deals coming down the pike, at least through the rest of 2021 and probably beyond. So what's behind this optimism? In a statement, Jonathan Russo, co-leader of Pillsbury's M&A group, cited a number of factors, including "significant tailwinds from stimulus measures, the low cost of capital and a strong U.S. vaccine rollout combined with proposed infrastructure investments and the need to deploy capital."

HARD SELL - Amazon was slapped with an antitrust class action Wednesday in Washington Western District Court on behalf of Amazon customers. The suit, filed by Milberg Phillips Grossman and the Phillips Law Firm, contends that the platform's imposition of a "most favored nation" pricing clause "prevents merchants from being able to sell their goods on alternative digital e-commerce channels with terms and prices that are more favorable than those offered on Amazon, which harms consumers by fixing, stabilizing, or increasing the price of those same merchants' goods on all platforms including Amazon." Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 2:21-cv-00838, Smith v. Amazon.com Inc. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

EDITOR'S PICKS

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

TRYING TO CONNECT - Despite all the pre-pandemic fears that managers would lose control of their teams in a remote setting and all the current talk of how working from home is hampering professional development, there is a decent amount of evidence that getting out of the office has actually helped many senior lawyers to become better managers. As Law.com International's Hannah Roberts reports, going virtual has meant that aloof partners can no longer simply watch the progress of their teams from afar while sitting in their office. Frequent and deliberate contact has been essential, which may not have come naturally to some, but is an improvement on what had been the norm, both senior and junior lawyers said. "I think if you'd been asked before COVID whether we have an expectation that partners should be active in pastoral care, the answer would have been yes," one London partner said. "But the fact we're not in the office anymore and we aren't just bumping into people, it makes you much more conscious of not seeing people and having that contact time and so you do then take time to book in a slot."E

WHAT YOU SAID

"I think clients are great at identifying lawyers who know their stuff really deeply, and expertise translates really well on phone calls, in email and on Zoom. Right now, it's hard to take prospects to dinner, to go to conferences or even to have in-person meetings, but that really gives lawyers whose expertise is solid a chance that they might not otherwise have."