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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

PRE-COVID COURTS – President Joe Biden has declared the pandemic is over, and certain courts are mirroring that sentiment by shelving COVID-19 mitigation protocols. In Pennsylvania, some judges and court administrators have said they are optimistic about the direction of their courts and the return toward business as usual, Aleeza Furman reports. Delaware County court administrator Jerry Montella said, in terms of protocols, "Essentially, we are now pre-COVID." Still, the court continues to grapple with pandemic-induced backlogs and the spread of the disease, Montella said.

DEAD-END JOB SEARCH – In-house candidates are disclosing bad behavior from recruiters and hiring managers during the recent hiring frenzy. Some attorneys say they went through an absurd number of interviews only to be ghosted by recruiters, Phillip Bantz reports. Others say reliance on Zoom instead of in-person interviews allowed more in-house leaders to set interviews at odd hours. Tara Trantham, former legal chief for World Acceptance Corp., said she went through nine interviews for a senior corporate counsel role at a fintech company. The final interview with the firm's general counsel was set at 11:30 p.m., and the general counsel was eating dinner and distracted by other people around her, according to Trantham. "It was beyond rude. I mean, I was appalled," she said.

MIDSIZE MARKET – Declines in M&A and bankruptcy work for midsize firms have been buoyed by growing demand in several practice areas including real estate, according to a recent report. Real estate, labor and employment, litigation and corporate work are all up by at least 1%, according to The 2022 State of the Midsize Legal Market Report from Thomson Reuters. Gerald Greenspoon, co-managing director of Greenspoon Marder, said he is optimistic about similar growth in 2023 "absent a major economic decline," Andrew Maloney reports.

EDITOR'S PICKS

In SCOTUS, a Rare Case of Criminal Contempt That Snagged Steven Donziger By Andrew Maloney