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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

MISUNDERSTOOD MARKETS - Growth-minded firms have been moving into emerging markets at a rapid clip, driven by client demand and/or the lure of work from expanding industries. The lower overhead also offers opportunities to firms and clients alike to maximize the value they receive from work done in emerging markets, even after the pandemic has shifted norms around where lawyers work and how they're paid. Sweet! That is, if the firms understand what they're getting into it. As industry watcher Hugh Simons told Law.com's Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, that's a big "if." "In order to overpay the partners in the little market, you have to underpay in the bigger markets. That's not a sustainable thing to do. Most firm compensation systems can't cope with it. That's the critical issue. That's the one that goes wrong," Simons said. Another thing that firms misunderstand about smaller offices is that they tend to go through peaks and valleys in terms of associates' billability. It can be feast or famine, Simons said, as partners in the smaller offices provide local associates with work, but lawyers elsewhere may not do so. "That just kills the economics. That more than offsets any reductions you get in terms of lower associate salaries or lower overhead," he said.

NO WONDER -  Transparency, what a concept!  Hogan Lovells garnered a ton of attention over the past week for doing something exceedingly rare in Big Law: being upfront about expectations. Law.com International reported that CEO Miguel Zaldivar sent a memo to all of the firm's lawyers, giving guidance on what many of its partners and junior lawyers interpreted as an hours target required to make the partnership. Part of the memo, titled "Being a partner at Hogan Lovells," said: "As we look across the partnership, we see that success typically means an 'all in' commitment on your part (for those who work full time) in the range of 2,400 hours per year." In the latest edition of our Law.com Trendspotter column, we examine how increased transparency around the partnership track could motivate some young attorneys and discourage others—and why the latter might not actually be such a bad thing. I'm interested to hear from you: Should law firms be explicit about the requirements for making partner? Let me know at [email protected].

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Sidley Austin and Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard have stepped in to defend Intercontinental Capital Group in a pending lawsuit brought on behalf of more than 40 former employees challenging the enforceability of employment agreements. The suit was filed April 6 in North Carolina Western District Court by Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete and Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders on behalf of the defendants' former workers and Movement Mortgage, which now employs the individual plaintiffs. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., is 3:22-cv-00147, Movement Mortgage LLC et al v. Intercontinental Capital Group, Inc. >> Read the filing 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.