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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

SHOW (EVERYONE) THE MONEY - Lawmakers across the nation are adopting a crop of wage transparency laws, imposing new obligations on employers in an effort to stamp out inequities in compensation. But, as Law.com's Charles Toutant reports, lawyers are split on whether, when it comes to pay info, there's such a thing as TMI. "More information about the pay range will give employees more bargaining power and leverage as they're negotiating starting pay. As starting pay is far and away the most impactful pay decision, getting started right means that you have a good grounding for equity going forward," said Christine Hendrickson, vice president of strategic initiatives for Syndio, a Seattle company offering software for analyzing wage equity. But it remains to be seen whether more information about other people's earnings will reduce the number of salary-discrimination lawsuits. In fact, some observers say that, at least in the early going, litigation is likely to spike because of these new measures. "The question is, is the cost worth the benefit? And I don't know the answer to that. I think it's going to force more companies to take a closer, more active look and engage themselves with pay equity more. And it will also give people more of a chance to say 'I don't think my pay is fair,' and engage on that issue. Overall, I think it will help, but I'm not sure if the burden won't offset the gain," said David Rapuano, a labor and employment lawyer at Archer in Voorhees, New Jersey.

PR MOVE - Over the last few years, more and more plaintiffs law firms have moved their offices, or large parts thereof, to Puerto Rico. And that trend was only exacerbated during the pandemic. Why? Well, first of all, it doesn't take a lot of arm-twisting to get most folks to a tropical climate. But also, as Law.com's Christine Schiffner reports, firms that open in the U.S. territory can take advantage of a substantial tax break, as well as an abundance of local legal talent that views working for a mainland plaintiffs firm as a promising career path "The solution was export services," said Marc D. Grossman, a senior partner at the plaintiffs firm Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman. The tax benefits only apply when you export your business or services to the states. "When you're in Puerto Rico, you don't pay federal tax." In short: back-office support staff in the territory doing a lot of the heavy lifting, including document review for mass torts and class action cases in the U.S. mainland. "It's an unbelievable opportunity," Napoli & Shkolnik partner Hunter Shkolnik said. He opened an office in Puerto Rico in 2017. "Within 90 days, we built our new office space, we had a team interviewing day after day." The firm went from 55 people in 2018 to about 125 employees today and from a rented office space to the purchase of a downtown office building.

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Simpson Thacher & Bartlett counseled Toronto-based The Bank of Nova Scotia, acting as administrative agent and sole bookrunner, in connection with Oracle Corp.'s $4.36 billion unsecured term loan facility. The Simpson Thacher team was led by partner William B. Sheehan. Counsel information for Oracle, based in Redwood City, California, was not immediately available. >> 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.