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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL? -  As Law.com's Brenda Sapino Jeffreys reports, revenue at law firms grew by 14% for the first nine months of 2021, continuing the pace set during the first half of the year, and far exceeding 6% growth during the same period in 2020, according to results of the Wells Fargo Legal Specialty Group Nine-Month 2021 Check-in Survey. "Firms continue to benefit from this 'best of all worlds' environment with almost everything going right: growth in demand, rates, and productivity—each up 6% or more, against generally easy comparisons a year ago," the private bank wrote in a Monday press release. What could go wrong? Well… quite a lot, actually, according to another new survey by Thomson Reuters. As Law.com's Andrew Maloney reports, among survey respondents—including C-suite professionals, pricing analysts and other business-minded firm leaders—recruiting and retaining talent, staff poaching and salary increases were the most commonly identified "high-risk" factors to firm profitability. Still, despite these challenges, optimism for the future remains high. "They identify a number of risks, and quite a few of them deem them to be large risks or high risks, but I think what we see in the duality of responses, they recognize that these are risks, but not necessarily existential," Bill Josten, manager of enterprise content for Thomson Reuters, said.

UNNATURAL SELECTION - When your business model is such that choosing the wrong case could mean not getting paid for hundreds of hours of work, it's advisable to get really good at choosing cases. Like, inhumanly good. With that in mind, as Law.com's Christine Schiffner reports, fast-growing plaintiffs firms have embraced technology with a fervor rarely seen outside of Silicon Valley. Take national personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan, for example. "What we can do is to make the process objective, not subjective," founder John Morgan said of Litify, the litigation processing technology his firm built and has come to heavily rely upon. The software forces lawyers at Morgan & Morgan to apply consistent standards across personal injury cases diminishing the risk of undervaluing cases at settlement. Other large plaintiffs firms, including Pond Lehocky Giordano, have also made use of Litify. Robins Kaplan, meanwhile, has its own case management software called Acumen. All this innovation within the personal injury bar could provide another key advantage beyond larger recoveries in individual cases. With a talent war impacting firms across the U.S., legal technology application at plaintiffs firms plays an important role when it comes to retention. "When new attorneys come into firms, this is going to matter—kids coming out of law school are not going to look through filing cabinets anymore," said Tony Donofrio, CTO of Veritext Legal Solutions.

HYZON HYPE MACHINE? - Hyzon Motors Inc. and individuals involved in the company's 2021 SPAC merger were hit with a securities class action Monday in New York Western District Court. The complaint, backed by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, accuses the defendants of over-hyping Hyzon's sales pipeline and its timetable for fulfilling orders. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 6:21-cv-06695, Miller v. Hyzon Motors Inc. f/k/a Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

EDITOR'S PICKS

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

BITTER SUITES - Maybe the success of law firm office returns is in the eye of the beholder. Are you are an "office half-empty" or "office half-full" type of person? It has been several months since lockdown restrictions eased in the U.K., but as Law.com International's Hannah Walker reports, law firms have thus far not seen office attendance spike. More than three quarters of respondents to a straw poll of 30 senior U.K. lawyers say their office is at less than 50% capacity on a typical day. Less than 7% said there were 75% or more in attendance. While many law firm leaders have stressed the importance of in-person work for professional development and preserving professional culture, it appears that not everyone shares that perspective. "Most people are returning under sufferance," said one London-based partner. "I have heard young, junior lawyers in our team tell me openly that they see no point in being made to go back and resent it. 'Why bother?,' they ask. I completely agree. The camaraderie and collaboration arguments are nonsense—you get zero collaboration in most law firms unless it is enforced. You get more engagement and equality on Zoom/Teams."

WHAT YOU SAID

"I don't want to call myself an advocate for pay to play. I just think it is inevitable."