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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

DON'T START - No law firm wants to be the first to do something unpleasant. But to be the second or third firm? Hey, no problem! Now that Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian has delayed (without explanation) the start date for its incoming class of associates until next January, all eyes are focused on whether other large law firms will follow. Several industry observers told Law.com's Brenda Sapino Jeffreys and Jessie Yount that, while they weren't aware of other big firms that had deferred associate start dates, Gunderson's move may now give more freedom for others to follow suit. Associates were set to start work at Gunderson on Oct. 31, but the firm pushed back the start date to Jan. 17, 2023. A spokesperson for the firm confirmed the start-date change, which was first reported on Above the Law, but declined to give a reason for it. Not everyone believes Gunderson will start a trend, however. Some industry experts said other big firms' broader practice and industry platforms will likely protect them from having to make such a move. Gunderson, based in California, tends to focus on transactions for many venture capital firms and startups in the tech industry, which is now struggling with layoffs, hiring freezes and stock devaluations. Kent Zimmermann, a law firm consultant with Zeughauser Group, said he "talks to chairs of firms every day" and hasn't heard of any other firms contemplating or taking a similar step. He said Gunderson's practice is different from many big firms because it's focused on venture capital and a limited set of industry sectors and has a limited scale that would magnify the impact of rising associate compensation costs. "I don't want to say we won't see anybody else do this, but I'm not shocked it's a firm like this," Zimmermann said.

DONALD, DUCKED - Stop me if you've heard this one before: reputational concerns probably led a slew of e-discovery vendors to rebuff former President Donald Trump's request for them to handle documents for the special master overseeing the review of thousands of records seized from his Florida home, legal tech experts told Law.com's Brad Kutner. Five document review vendors turned down Trump's legal team, according to a government filing late Tuesday. While the document didn't explain why the vendors turned down the job, that didn't stop online speculation. Among the top reasons was the former president's reputation for not paying for services. U.S. Attorney Juan A. Gonzalez appeared to acknowledge that concern in the government's filing, writing "the government expects plaintiff to pay the vendor's invoices promptly when rendered." Trump's legal team on Wednesday said that the vendors turned down the job after learning the government seized 200,000 pages within the 11,000 documents originally disclosed. But those within the e-discovery industry, like Mary Mack, the CEO and chief legal technologist for Electronic Discovery Reference Model, said the historic nature of the case, and the near guarantee of fights over reviewed documents, will put a harsh spotlight on whoever does the scanning. "It's very, very public and charged, there's more difficulty there," Mack said. She pointed to the document review team at HaystackID, which was used during the document review of New York Attorney General Letitia James' tax fight with Trump. "The news media described Haystack as 'the former president's organization,' as if they had taken a political position when they were a neutral party," Mack said. "That might have chilled other vendors before taking on something like this again."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - Repsol SA announced that it has agreed to sell a 25 percent stake in its upstream oil and gas business to energy investor EIG for approximately $4.8 billion. The transaction, announced Sept. 7, is expected to close within the next six months. Washington D.C.-based EIG is advised by a Latham & Watkins team led by London-based corporate partners Sam Newhouse and Simon Tysoe. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is counseling Goldman Sachs & Co., acting as financial advisor to EIG. The Gibson Dunn corporate team was led by partner Hillary Holmes. Counsel information for Repsol, which is based in Madrid, Spain, 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.

ON THE RADAR  -E-commerce software company ChannelAdvisor and members of its board of directors were hit with a shareholder lawsuit Thursday in New York Southern District Court in connection with the company's proposed acquisition by CommerceHub for more than $600 million. The suit seeks to block the deal based on alleged misrepresentations in the proxy statement filed in support of the transaction. The suit was brought by Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz on behalf of Ryan O'Dell, who has been represented by the firm in a wave of similar shareholder suits against other companies. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 1:22-cv-08334, O'Dell v. Buckley et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com.   

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