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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY - Just a few months ago, despite plenty of global tumult, law firms were desperate to hire as many lawyers as they could. Firms were having trouble meeting client demand, particularly on the corporate side. Alas, nothing gold can stay. As inflation fears persist and deal work slows, the chatter and some early movement all point to a trimming of the collective ranks on the way. But this "rightsizing" is not likely to take the form of mass layoffs, Rather, much to the chagrin of some handsomely compensated attorneys, many firms plan to reduce head count through aggressive performance reviews. But, as Law.com's Gina Passarella writes in this week's Barometer newsletter, the move to counsel out attorneys through performance reviews could be tempered by a move to transition lawyers to busier practice areas. Meanwhile, as is the case during any down market, there will also be those firms that look to capitalize on the opportunities presented, investing in talent and practice acquisition, taking advantage of other firms' head count management. To receive the Law.com Barometer directly to your inbox each week, click here.

CLOUD OF CONFUSION - Law firm partners aren't just yelling at clouds in a figurative sense. Many are also growing increasingly frustrated with their firms' efforts to adopt cloud-based tools, Law.com's Isha Marathe reports. Industry observers expect law firm cloud transitions to continue to steadily ramp up, albeit in various strategic phases. Still, experts noted that the path toward cloud migration comes with significant snags that legal will have to overcome in the coming years. While some concerns are dependent on firm size and resource availability, others are based on the growing cybersecurity issues and tricky integration issues. Todd Corham, the chief information officer at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, said the primary problems holding firms back are security and a lack of integration between cloud applications because the connectors are still immature. "A lot of your traditional security people aren't necessarily your cloud people. They're on-prem people. So that can bring up security issues," Corham said. "Then the places where all these different cloud applications talk to each other [APIs] … can be slow, cumbersome, and quirky, and not every mix of tools is going to work as seamlessly as designed. We have some bugs to get out of those systems."

ON THE RADAR  - Bethenny Frankel, entrepreneur and alum of the reality series "The Real Housewives of New York City," filed a publicity rights class action against TikTok on Thursday in New York Southern District Court. The suit, brought by Morgan & Morgan, accuses the popular video app of allowing 'unscrupulous' parties to misappropriate the content, likenesses and voices of social media influencers for the purpose of creating a false association with certain brands in order to sell counterfeit items. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 1:22-cv-08503, Frankel v. TikTok, Inc. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com. 

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