Want to get this daily news briefing by email? Here's the sign-up.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

SLOWER GROWERS? -  We kicked the week off with some good news about Big Law profits, but we regret to inform you we're now about to bring down the mood a little. After record profits at many big law firms last year, law firm partners remain bullish about 2022. But, as Law.com's Andrew Maloney and Patrick Smith report, even if demand remains high, several forces are probably conspiring against sky-high profits again this year, including a slow down in deal work, rising expenses, inflation and geopolitical events. Gretta Rusanow, managing director and head of client advisory services at Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group, said firm partners are now measuring themselves against their tremendous (and somewhat aberrational) performances last year. Expense pressures could also make profitability growth trickier. Rusanow's group found expenses shot up an average of 10.4% across the industry in 2021, much of it due to 16.3% growth in compensation expenses. Of course, many law firm leaders would argue those costs were actually investments. Gregg Eisenberg, managing partner of Cleveland-based Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, said his firm wouldn't quite match the highest associate salaries in Big Law, but it would "be very close." "In my view, now is the time to invest in your people and team," he said.

WHERE THE ACTION IS - If you're a defense lawyer or in-house counsel, you can stop lying awake at night wondering where the next wave of litigation is going to come from. Instead, you can now lie awake at night and read the latest edition of Carlton Fields' annual class action report, which tells you exactly where that next wave is likely to come from. As Law.com's Michael A. Mora reports, this year's report says labor and employment, consumer fraud, and data privacy and security, respectively, are expected to dominate class action litigation this year. Luckily, John E. Clabby, a Tampa-based shareholder at Carlton Fields and one of the directors of the report, said there are things in-house and defense attorneys can do now to prepare for those suits. "A lot of these consumer-brought class actions are coming out of a company's use of social media," Clabby said. "So in-house counsel might ask for a review of the policies and procedures around social media." Meanwhile, according to the report, three defensive strategies reigned supreme across class action litigation: Absence of commonality and predominance, failure to state a claim, and plaintiff's claim not being typical of the alleged claims of the class. And this is the second year in a row that these specific defensive strategies stood out as the most effective. Clabby said, "If counsel is thinking about how to respond to a new lawsuit, know that these three defensive strategies jumped out as being most effective."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Charles Palella of Armstrong Teasdale has entered an appearance for Italian-born artist Remo Saraceni, creator of the "Big Piano" featured in the 1988 movie "Big" in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The complaint, filed Jan. 31 in New York Southern District Court by Renner, Otto, Boisselle, & Sklar on behalf of FAO Roc, the owner and operator of the FAO Schwarz toy store, and Merchsource, LLC, accuses Saraceni of improperly associating himself and his products with FAO Schwarz. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres, is 1:22-cv-00831, Fao Roc Holdings LLC et al v. Saraceni. Read the complaint 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.