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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT - Tension is growing between associates and partners along fault lines of hourly commitments and return-to-office policies, Law.com's Andrew Maloney reports. As associates continue asking for more flexibility around remote work and lower billable-hour requirements, some partners are doubling down on their deeply-held convictions that "work-life balance" simply cannot exist for young lawyers in Big Law. Or, perhaps more accurately, work-life balance is a redundant phrase when work is life. "To succeed, your life simply cannot be your own," one Am Law 100 partner wrote in a recent American Lawyer survey. "Young associates do not want to live like this—and they are pushing back against the business model, but what they do not understand is that the work is still getting done. It's just getting done by those above them, to the detriment of the physical and mental well being of those who don't have the option of dropping the ball."

GO LOWER - Law firm partners may not be ready to give up on The Way Things Are Done Around Here™, but in-house legal departments appear to have finally reached a breaking point. Grappling with higher hourly rates for outside counsel and rising litigation costs, big corporate law departments are shifting more of their litigation to smaller law firms, according to a recently released study. The study, Law.com's Chris O'Malley reports, found that the percentage of litigation work that law firms with fewer than 250 lawyers received from Fortune 50 companies has soared from 56% in 2018 to 79% now. "Many corporate legal departments are starting to realize that they don't need to use their standard big firms to do lower-value work," said Ken Callander, principal at Value Strategies, a consulting firm for legal departments.

ON THE RADAR - FCA US d/b/a Dodge was hit with a digital privacy class action Tuesday in California Southern District Court. The suit, filed by the Law Offices of Ronald A. Marron and Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, alleges that the defendant allows third party Salesforce to access transcripts of user communications on Dodge.com. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 3:23-cv-00982, D'Angelo et al v. FCA US, LLC. Stay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.

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