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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

TALENT NO-SHOW - It's arguably harder than ever for Big Law firms to hold onto talented young lawyers amid intense competition from rivals and a smorgasbord of internal and external pressures, including crushing workloads and mounting home responsibilities. And, as Law.com's Andrew Maloney reports, despite salary increases, creative bonuses and more flexibility than ever, industry observers say firms still aren't finding enough, investing in enough or folding in enough young attorneys to office leadership, causing concern they'll burn out or find greener pastures in other industries. Randy Kiser, a scholar of the legal profession and analyst for DecisionSet, said two of the major challenges to law firms right now are "if we don't bring in more young people into law firm leadership and the leadership starts to stagnate," as well as an inability to recruit or retain enough attorneys to do the work. "And at this point, it looks like that is a growing threat to the law firm business model," said Kiser. "As long as you're selling time, you have to be very careful about retaining the people who are delivering that profitability."

HOSTILE CLIMATE - As courts have increasingly granted standing to plaintiffs suing greenhouse gas emitters such as fossil fuel companies, more plaintiffs firms have turned their attention to this evolving area of the law. Among the most recent entrants into the arena is Seeger Weiss, which in February launched an environmental practice group, chaired by partner Matt Pawa and based in Massachusetts. "There are a lot of cases being filed by a lot of different lawyers. Clearly, there is a trend in favor of pursuing climate justice," Pawa said. "State and local governments are now having to shoulder the massive cost of climate change and the question is posed: Who should really pay? Should it be the taxpayers? Or should it be the companies that knew about the problem and continued to push their products into the public anyway?"  But, as Law.com's Christine Schiffner reports, plaintiffs firms face an uphill battle in a legal system that has so far leaned heavily toward defendants in these cases, "It's a causation issue that really kind of boggles the mind," said Jeffrey Dintzer, a Los Angeles-based partner at Alston & Bird who has represented oil companies in cases such as Chevron v. County of Monterey. For Dintzer, the issue of climate change and its impact on local communities is a political question, rather than one for courts to decide. "It's really not a legal issue," he said.

ICY RECEPTION - Banner & Witcoff filed a patent and trade dress infringement lawsuit Friday in Texas Southern District Court on behalf of YETI Coolers over its "Rambler" line of drinkware products. The suit, which targets Igloo Products, asserts 15 patents and accuses Igloo of intentionally deceiving consumers by selling drinkware that looks similar to YETI's. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 4:21-cv-03203, Yeti Coolers, LLC v. Igloo Products Corporation. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

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EDITOR'S PICKS

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

DUBAI DOUBLE-TAKE - As we noted in this space recently, the Dubai International Arbitration Centre is, as of Sept. 20, the sole arbitral chamber in the emirate. The move effectively signaled the abolition of the Dubai International Financial Centre-London Court of International Arbitration (DIFC-LCIA), paving the way for the Dubai International Arbitration Centre to act as sole dispute-resolution seat in the emirate. Is it a good idea? Maybe! Who knows? But one thing that's for sure, Law.com International's Peter Shaw-Smith reports, is that the announcement was a shocker. "The decree came as a complete surprise to everyone in the arbitration community," said an arbitration partner at a leading international firm in Dubai. "It's come out of the blue, and that is the biggest challenge with it." The partner thinks the changes "may be good and well-advised and may result in a strengthening of Dubai as an arbitration center," but added that "we don't know". "Obviously, things have to be implemented and developed, but the means of rolling out the announcement, catching everybody by surprise, at least within the short-to-medium term, probably undermines Dubai as an arbitration hub."

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WHAT YOU SAID

"It was always difficult to get paid anything, but what happened in a nutshell is, basically, we were threatened with, 'you better stop asking me for money or I'm going to sic the State Bar on you,' even though we weren't doing anything wrong. Tom Girardi had that kind of power."