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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

TAKE A HIKE - Each year, associate pay climbs higher and law firms' rates follow closely behind. And each year, industry watchers wonder whether clients will finally get fed up enough to actually push back. But if there is to be any kind of wide-scale reckoning over rate hikes, it hasn't come yet. And, at least according to some experts, there are no real signs that it's impending, despite the pandemic ratcheting up budget pressures for in-house departments. As we explore in the latest Law.com Trendspotter column, while clients make no secret of their irritation at the law firm talent war and its attendant costs, associate salary bumps continue and more rate hikes are expected this year. But while there's unlikely to be a mass uprising by corporate America in response to ballooning legal bills, clients do have ways to signal to their outside counsel that enough is enough. If/when they do, the message will likely have less to do with price than it does with value. I'm interested to get your thoughts: Are clients' criticisms of associate pay raises (and the attendant rate increases) fair? If so, what can/should in-house counsel be doing to make their disapproval clear? Let me know at [email protected].

UNTANGLING TIE-UP TECH - Law firm mergers are a little like when couples first move in together, albeit on a much grander scale. "What are we supposed to do with two air fryers?" becomes "what are we supposed to do with two case management systems?" As Law.com's Dan Packel reports, interviews with leaders at three law firms that recently absorbed smaller shops made clear that some degree of disruption is inevitable when combining the IT systems and related operations of two discrete businesses, particularly since it's impossible to get a full view of how the mechanisms will fit together until a combination is finalized. When done right, the lawyers are the ones who are least affected—but that means getting critical buy-in from the people who will actually be using this stuff. "It's often the staff that's going to have the toughest time with the transition," said Dinsmore & Shohl IP department chair and finance committee chair Josh Lorentz, who helped facilitate the firm's merger with 47-attorney Wooden McLaughlin at the start of 2021. "Lawyers serve the clients the same way, clients interact with lawyers the same way, but the staff that handles the internal systems, that's where the heartburn comes for having to integrate the two teams."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Wag Labs Inc., a pet service marketplace platform, is going public via SPAC merger with CHW Acquisition Corp. As a result of the merger, Wag! Group Co. will be listed on the Nasdaq with a post-transaction equity value of approximately $350 million. The transaction, announced Feb. 3, is expected to close by the second quarter of 2022. San Francisco-based Wag Labs is advised by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. CHW, which is based in New York, is represented by a McDermott, Will & Emery team led by partners Ari Edelman and Harold Davidson. Read the press release on Law.com Radar and check out the most recent edition of Law.com's Who Got the Work?℠ column to find out which law firms and lawyers are being brought in to handle key cases and close major deals for their clients.