Want to get this daily news briefing by email? Here's the sign-up.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

LESS PAY FOR MORE PLAY - Last month, U.K.-based Slaughter and May announced it was formalizing a program in which associates can reduce their billable hour requirements in exchange for a 1:1 reduction in pay. Should other firms follow suit? Well, like most things in the business of managing human beings, it's complicated. Plenty of millennial attorneys would trade lower pay for less work, but some lawyers at firms that offer reduced hour arrangements don't feel the schemes are worth pursuing. That's partly due to the fact that law firms weirdly tend to introduce flexible working policies during periods of high demand—when they're least able to deliver on them. "Firms are not as eager to make sure associates are staying if they don't want to play by the same rules, but in very busy times like we saw in 2021, firms will do things outside the box to try to attract people," legal recruiter Michelle Fivel of Hatch Henderson Fivel told Law.com's Dan Roe.

LACKING LANGUAGE MODELS? - The New York Times' recent complaint against OpenAI and Microsoft alleging copyright infringement made headlines for its use of the term "memorization" when referring to the process of how a large language model is trained. A few weeks later, OpenAI came out with its own metaphor in a blog post—arguing that the AI is not meant to "memorize," or make copies, but rather "regurgitate" text. Experts have argued that neither term sufficiently summarizes the process. And the accuracy with which attorneys can distill heady concepts matters a heck of a lot in the context of litigation. As Mike Masnick, the editor of TechDirt, told Law.com's Isha Marathe, he believes judges are likely to "grasp at metaphors," making it "so maybe they'll think that [GPT-4] actually does memorize [copyrighted information]." As attorneys educate themselves on this fast-moving tech, they might want to refine the words they use to explain what these tools are doing, he noted.

ON THE RADAR - Baker McKenzie partner Mark H. Hamer and Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders partner Jeremy Heep have stepped in as defense counsel to Sika AG and Sika Corp. in a pending antitrust class action. The action was filed Dec. 5 in Pennsylvania Eastern District Court by Glancy Prongay & Murray; Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca; and Tostrud Law Group. The suit accuses the defendants of price-fixing in the markets for cement additives and admixtures for concrete and mortar. Cinven, RPM International and Saint-Gobain were also named as defendants. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Kai N. Scott, is 2:23-cv-04797, Lakewood Concrete Corp. v. Sika AG et al. Stay up on the latest state and federal litigation, as well as the latest corporate deals, with Law.com Radar.  

EDITOR'S PICKS