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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

WOULDN'T WANNA BE YA  - A presentation by a senior Paul Hastings associate with a demanding list of "nonnegotiable expectations" for junior colleagues is sparking a broad range of reactions in the in-house community, Law.com's Maria Dinzeo, Chris O'Malley and Trudy Knockless report. But whether the response was fury, wry amusement or even agreement with its points, observers outside of Big Law all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion: relief that they chose a different career path. "Everyone who is in-house is saying, 'This is why I work in-house,'" said Foster Sayers, GC at contract management company Pramata. "It's a real attitude. There's so much insecurity rooted in establishing a paradigm where he who works the most is the most valuable. When you're early in your career, that is the paradigm that is reinforced because of the billable hour. It's a problem that's really plaguing Big Law especially."

OVER BEFORE IT BEGAN -  Several of the first-year associates who initially planned to start at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian in October, only to have their start date pushed to January, found themselves out of a job on Tuesday, Law.com's Jessie Yount reports. Since news of the 10% reduction of associates, paralegals and staff across U.S. offices broke, four sources familiar with the reduction shared that the cuts included several first-year associates as well as other junior and midlevel associates and a few of counsel across the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Boston. The sources said affected attorneys will receive three months of severance pay and two months of health insurance. They said associates would be immediately removed from the firm website. In the last two days, Gunderson removed 45 associates from its website, though it's unclear if some of those associates were affected by performance-related cuts made in the fall.

ON THE RADAR - Marquette University was hit with a wrongful death lawsuit on Friday in Wisconsin Eastern District Court on behalf of the mother of a Marquette graduate who died by suicide after murdering an acquaintance. The court case, filed by Hess Law Offices, claims that Marquette University police officers failed to act in accordance with their obligations after encountering Andrew Story days before the murder and transporting him an emergency psychiatric facility. The suit alleges that Story was improperly released without a thorough assessment because the officers did not disclose that he had been involuntarily detained and brought in for evaluation pursuant to Wisconsin law. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 2:23-cv-00458, Story v. Marquette University. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.

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