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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

HARDER TO HIRE - While the prospects of a recession have been a matter for debate, the uncertainty of the economic climate is certainly already having rippling effects across several industries, Law.com's Cassandre Coyle reports. Take, for example, Silicon Valley. After years of unthreatened growth, Big Tech is now dialing back amid the volatile economy. Many of the Big Tech giants are slowing down, if not freezing, hires, with some rescinding job offers and others announcing layoffs. This might be welcome news to the legal tech industry, which has struggled to compete with other industries for talent in the past. But whether Big Tech's recent slump could give legal tech a hiring edge is hard to tell. Instead, Silicon Valley's slowdown could bring its own set of challenges to the legal tech market. Jared Coseglia, founder and CEO of TRU Staffing Partners, said he doesn't expect a wave of talent from Big Tech to make its way to the legal tech industry, whether it be data scientists, engineers or other IT professionals. "We do not expect to see the kind of turnover that we saw during the pandemic with legal technology professionals as we head into this recession or whatever it's going to be," Coseglia said. He added, "what we expect to see is a diminishing amount of net new open job requisitions that are either put on hold or staffed conversely by contract hires to buffer against perpetual expectations of utilization." If anything, Big Tech's temporary slump could have the opposite effect on legal's hiring field, he said. "The real impact for legal tech on Big Tech's disposition of talent has more to do with people in legal tech taking contract jobs at those Big Tech companies in somewhat reinvented positions," Coseglia said.

WINTER WEATHER - The fall of cryptocurrency prices over the course of 2022 has already pushed major industry players to bankruptcy. Late last month, crypto-mining data center operator Compute North filed for bankruptcy, following the July bankruptcies of crypto lender Celsius, crypto brokerage Voyager Digital, and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. As the prolonged "crypto winter" approaches $1 trillion in losses this year, restructuring lawyers and their colleagues at financial and blockchain analytics firms predicted a rise in fraud and insolvency at a recent virtual roundtable hosted by litigation funder Burford Capital. As Law.com's Dan Roe reports, litigation finance will step up to meet the demand for counsel among insolvent companies and victims of digital assets fraud, some participants said. Meanwhile, the other parties involved in global crypto investigations and bankruptcies—courts, exchanges, and blockchain analysts—are finding innovative ways to help clients track and reclaim assets known for anonymity.

ON THE RADAR  - Unitrin Safeguard Insurance, a subsidiary of Kemper Corp., filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against real estate reporter and risk assessor Mueller Services and other defendants on Tuesday in New York Western District Court. The suit, brought by Zelle LLP, accuses Mueller of failing to identify property defects before Unitrin insured the property, which was subsequently damaged in a fire. Unitrin further alleges that it would not have insured the property had it known about the defects. Lawyers have not yet appeared for the defendants. The case is 1:22-cv-00752, Unitrin Safeguard Insurance Co. v. Barrow et al. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com.   

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