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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

'A LONG WAY TO GO' - The top five female legal chiefs in 2021 collected $26.8 million in total cash comp, which averages to $5.4 million, an increase of 27% over 2020's average of $4.2 million. As Law.com's Trudy Knockless reports, the rising pay reflects the intensely competitive market to hire and retain general counsel, said Deborah Ben-Canaan, a partner and senior practice leader of in-house counsel recruiting at Major, Lindsey & Africa Global. But not all the compensation news for female GCs was bright. Nine of the 20 highest-paid GCs on last year's overall list of highest-paid GCs were women, an encouraging indicator that the stubborn gender pay gap might finally be closing. But the number of women on this year's top 20 fell to five. "I'm disappointed. We seemed to be improving last year, but now we've hit a huge drop-off," Katherine Loanzon, managing director at Kinney Recruiting in New York, said in July. "The pandemic may have been a factor as it caused a lot of female executives to have to come to terms with balancing the family versus their professional responsibilities." She added, "But a larger conversation should be, 'How are these companies supporting women in these positions?' It just shows that corporate America still has a long way to go."

FUTURE TENSE - While the final quarter is still on the horizon and economic uncertainty is lingering, law firm performance for 2022 is significantly "baked in" at this point, and it would take a major shake-up to alter course, some industry observers say. But what does 2023 have in store? As Law.com's Andrew Maloney reports, that answer is, uh… not quite done baking. Uncertainty about whether the deal market will rebound and unknowns such as the U.S. midterm elections and the war in Ukraine, along with stubbornly-persistent inflation, could all shape the road ahead. Demand and profits are down this year, but that was expected. Even before much of the geopolitical and macroeconomic turmoil kicked in, law firms knew their 2021 benchmarks were going to be tough to top. And a majority of firms still reported better-than-anticipated performance and profitability after the start of the year, according to a recent ALM/LawVision Flash Survey. In the context of the past three years, too, the industry has seen 2.3% average annual demand growth since halfway through 2019, according to Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group. "Generally firms have been concerned, but up until the half-year point, things seemed to be holding up quite well," said Tony Williams, a London-based principal at Jomati Consultants.  But things get significantly blurrier when trying to project out through next year. David Foltyn, CEO of Honigman, said the lingering question for his firm on this year's performance is whether it will be more like 2019, 2020 or 2021—all of which included gains. However, "the whole law world is wondering about 2023," he said.

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Williams & Connolly partners Thomas H.L. Selby and David Berl are defending Pfizer in a pending patent lawsuit over Paxlovid, Pfizer's high-profile treatment for COVID-19. The case, filed June 21 in Massachusetts District Court by Foley Hoag on behalf of Enanta Pharmaceuticals, contends that Paxlovid contains a chemical compound patented by Enanta. Pfizer is also represented by McCarter & English. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper, is 1:22-cv-10967, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Pfizer 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.