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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

COOL FOR THE SUMMER - You've got to hand it to large law firms: they know how to turn on the charm when it counts. This year, another summer associate class has returned to law school believing life as a junior Big Law attorney is more like the Copacabana scene in "Goodfellas" and less like the part where Henry's worried about getting whacked. As Law.com's Dan Roe reports, The American Lawyer's 2023 Summer Associate Satisfaction Survey polled 3,471 summer associates from more than 70 law firms and found that most walked away from the experience more satisfied and optimistic than the vast majority of young lawyers feel by the time they respond to TAL's Midlevel Associates Survey.

NO GUARANTEES - In Big Law, as in the NFL, guaranteed money for multiple years is rare—and, according to some legal industry recruiters, might be getting even rarer. Only a little more than one in 10 lateral partners in a survey published this year said they'd received pay guarantees for more than two full years. Industry observers told Law.com's Andrew Maloney that, while such agreements can offer some certainty and help each party get acclimated to the other, they can also signal a lack of buy-in or, worse, foster resentment among partners.

ON THE RADAR - Baker Donelson and Baker Botts have stepped in as defense counsel to Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical in a lawsuit filed Aug. 10 in Maryland District Court filed by Seeger Weiss, Ben Crump Law and the Law Offices of Kim Parker. Plaintiff Ron L. Lacks is the representative of the Estate of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the first immortalized human cell line and have led to medical innovations. The suit alleges the defendant commercialized her genetic material despite it being taken without her consent or knowledge at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman, is 1:23-cv-02171, Lacks v. Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical IncStay up on the latest state and federal litigation, as well as the latest corporate deals, with Law.com Radar 


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