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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

THE CLAWS COME OUT -  The true sign of a healthy relationship is when one party is so terrified that the other party might leave that they use the threat of financial penalties to try to force them to stay. Beautiful! As Law.com's Jessie Yount reports, law firms are increasingly attaching strings to their partnership agreements in order to protect their partnerships and forestall lateral departures in a high-demand market. Since January, three Am Law 30 firms have incorporated clawback provisions into their partnership agreements that make it more difficult for a partner to leave, according to legal recruiter Larry Watanabe. While these methods are somewhat understandable given how insanely cutthroat the talent market has become, observers said there are significant downsides to whipping out the golden handcuffs⁠—downsides that could ultimately hinder hiring while also failing to have the desired effect on retention. "If you put in an onerous clause, maybe it'll help prevent people from departing, but it will also deter people on the recruiting side," says Bob Brigham, a legal recruiter at Major, Lindsey & Africa. "It can send a message of weakness and raise a red flag in people's minds. And in my experience, those provisions don't keep people from leaving."

CLIMATE CHANGE -  The cost of doing business could be about to increase big time. As Law.com's Phillip Bantz reports, the SEC is forging ahead with rule changes for mandatory climate-related disclosures that are more stringent and potentially costly than some corporate legal departments had hoped. Under a proposed rule the SEC published Monday, all publicly traded companies would be required to disclose data about climate-related risks that have a "material impact on their business," including greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption, which the SEC classifies as Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, respectively.  A particularly thorny part of the 510-page proposal would require some companies to report Scope 3 emissions, which a business generates indirectly through its dealings with third parties, such as customers and suppliers. These types of emissions can be difficult—and particularly expensive—for companies to measure.  "The SEC's climate disclosure proposal is the most extensive, comprehensive and complicated disclosure initiative in decades," Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partner Meredith Cross, a former SEC official, said in a statement. Cross noted that the "sheer quantity of information that would be required in Form 10-K and the third party attestation requirements would dramatically increase climate related disclosure obligations and the related costs."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - LanzaTech NZ Inc., a carbon capture and transformation company, is going public via SPAC merger with AMCI Acquisition Corp. II. As a result of the merger, LanzaTech will be listed on the Nasdaq with a post-transaction equity value of approximately $2.2 billion. The transaction, announced March 8, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022. LanzaTech, which is based in Auckland, New Zealand, was represented by a Covington & Burling team including partners Scott Anthony and Denny Kwon. The SPAC was advised by White & Case. Ropes & Gray represented Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Evercore, which acted as placement agents on the PIPE. >> 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.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST RATES  - White and Williams filed a civil RICO lawsuit Tuesday in New York Southern District Court against Evan Marmott and his two merchant cash advance companies Yes Funding Services and Cap Call. The complaint, brought on behalf of FTE Networks and other companies, accuses the defendants of engaging in a scheme to defraud merchants of millions of dollars through deceptive "merchant agreements" which were actually loans that had to be repaid within a short time period at interest rates exceeding 1500%. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 1:22-cv-02314, Lateral Recovery LLC et al v. Cap Call LLC et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.  

EDITOR'S PICKS

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

UKRAINE'S HUMAN RIGHTS FIGHT -  Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has been appointed counsel for Ukraine in inter-state proceedings against the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Law.com International's James Carstensen reports. The firm is representing Ukraine pro bono. The action follows the success of Ukraine's proceedings at the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' highest court, which ordered Russia to cease its military operations immediately. Covington & Burling is representing Ukraine in those proceedings, which are ongoing. Ukraine initially sent a request on Feb. 28 to the ECHR, also referred to as the Strasbourg Court, seeking urgent interim measures in relation to "massive human rights violations being committed by the Russian troops in the course of the military aggression against the sovereign territory of Ukraine," which the court granted. The court found that Russia's military action against Ukraine "gives rise to a real and continuing risk of serious violations" of the civilian population's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. Both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are parties to that agreement. The Quinn Emanuel team is led by partners Alex Gerbi and Julianne Hughes Jennett.

WHAT YOU SAID

"What makes an associate partnership material is the ability to critically analyze a problem, exercise independent judgment, and present a reasoned solution."

— Cindy Jordano, partner at Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna in New York, on her best advice for associates who aspire to make partner.