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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

CRAZY TRAIN? - Global powerhouse Dentons has touted its Project Golden Spike as an innovative expansion into regional American markets. Its name is intended to honor the celebratory railroad spike that completed the first transcontinental railroad in the United States in 1869—an infamously grueling project that took years to complete and resulted in thousands of casualties along the way. The firm's current situation is certainly not that dramatic, but, similar to the challenges facing White & Case that we told you about earlier this week, Dentons has experienced a fair number of growing pains since it launched its strategy. According to data from ALM's Legal Compass, 181 partners and associates have left the firm since the start of 2020, nearly offsetting the 259 who have joined, largely through the addition of new Golden Spike firms. And, as Law.com's Bruce Love and Justin Henry report, many of the partners who have left Dentons since the announcement of Golden Spike said they felt that moving into smaller markets came at the cost of improvements needed in major markets. The firm, however, took issue with that characterization. "There are naturally certain large markets we believe are unique and require a strong presence—like Manhattan and Washington, D.C. Golden Spike does not run contrary to that strategy," said Dentons global chair Joe Andrew.

BAD BUYS - Earlier this week, we looked at how a booming legal tech market is creating hurdles for both buyers and sellers, as the former struggles to make sense of an overwhelming array of products and the latter fights to stand out in an ever-growing crowd of competitors. The result is that the two sides often don't seem to understand each other's wants and needs. In this week's Law.com Barometer newsletter, technology editor Rhys Dipshan writes that this communication breakdown can lead to poor choices at a time when the legal tech landscape is evolving at lightspeed. "…[W]ith many legal tech vendors unlikely to immediately change their unhelpful marketing habits, and the pressure for law firms to stay competitive in the market, rushed and uninformed legal tech purchases will surely be an ongoing problem," Dipshan writes. But the good news, he adds, is that there's also likely to be a growing number of mature legal tech buyers going forward who can impart (and sometimes impose) their knowledge on the organizations they work with.

CORPORATE WASTE? - Covanta Holding, a provider of waste and energy services, and its board of directors were slapped with a shareholder lawsuit Thursday in New Jersey District Court over the company's proposed acquisition by EQT Infrastructure for $5.3 billion. "The defendants filed a materially incomplete and misleading Proxy Statement with the SEC and disseminated it to Covanta's stockholders," the complaint alleges. "Designed to convince the Company's stockholders to vote in favor of the Proposed Transaction, the Proxy Statement is rendered misleading by the omission of critical information." The case was filed by Weisslaw LLP and Federman & Sherwood on behalf of Adrienne Halberstam. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 2:21-cv-17453, Halberstam v. Covanta Holding Corporation, et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

EDITOR'S PICKS

• After His 100th Oral Argument, Kannon Shanmugam Reflects on Appellate Practice By Tony Mauro

• Another Federal Appeals Court Says COVID-19 Shutdown Orders Aren't Covered by Business Interruption Insurance By Allison Dunn

• How I Made It to Firm Leadership: 'The Issue of Diversity and Retention Is Not as Simple as Flipping a Switch,' Says Richard Cortizas, Chief Diversity Officer at Jones Walker By Tasha Norman

• Benjamin Moore Hires Lead Counsel 10 Months After Jettisoning Legal Department By Greg Andrews

• Indiana Solicitor General Says State's Abortion Laws 'Are for the Health and Safety of Women' By Allison Dunn

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

NEUTRAL NO MORE? - Leading experts attending this year's Paris Arbitration Week said they're seeing increasing evidence of bias in arbitration proceedings, Law.com International's James Carstensen reports. In April, a failed appeal by Galeries Lafayette to set aside a €680 million International Arbitration Court on grounds of arbitrator bias, and a similar failure last year to remove an arbitrator by Halliburton Co. at the English Supreme Court, have prompted renewed discussion among arbitration experts on whether a bias issue exists in arbitration. At the same time, a growing pool of empirical evidence has shown bias. One study, by the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law professor Sergio Puig, found that "professional arbitrators suffer from affiliation effects—a cognitive predisposition to favor the appointing party." "These developments have raised discussion in the arena of investment arbitration that something's wrong," Noah Rubins QC, a partner at Freshfields in Paris and one of the sessions' speakers, told Carstensen.

WHAT YOU SAID

"It's paramount that you not get stuck in the milieu into which you were born and you become sensitive to how the world is changing, and what the attitudes of younger generations might be now."