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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

BOUTIQUE BONUS ROUND - Now that Big Law's biggest law firms have doled out special fall bonuses and year-end bonuses to their associates, its litigation boutiques' move. And, as Brenda Sapino Jeffreys and Lizzy McLellan report, they don't seem likely to sit this round out. In fact, one prominent boutique has already entered the game: Wilkinson Stekloff confirmed that it announced year-end bonuses Dec. 4 that beat the market-leading Am Law 100 firms. Meanwhile, other boutique leaders also said they've either already paid or intend to pay competitive associate bonuses. But not everyone is willing to publicly talk numbers. "There is a lot of pain and suffering out there. We aren't interested in advertising our financial success at a time when so many people are suffering," said William T. Reid IV, a founding partner of Austin-based trial firm Reed Collins & Tsai, which did pay out bonuses this year.

MED SURGE - The pandemic has caused a significant backlog of elective medical procedures, as many people have avoided non-emergency doctor visits in recent months. But with hopes rising for a vaccine, medical malpractice lawyers are now predicting a rush of those surgeries once most of the population is immunized from COVID-19, Michael A. Mora reports. And just behind that surge in procedures is likely to come a surge of med mal claims, they say. "The trouble is on the health care provider side, they are just so hungry for work again they will overburden themselves by increasing patient load," said Stuart Ratzan of Miami personal injury firm Ratzan Weissman & Boldt. "And if patients are neglecting their care or avoiding their own warning sides for fear of seeing a doctor because of the virus, that could contribute to that outcome."

AIR DEFENSE  - Winston & Strawn partners Katherine Vidal, Samantha M. Lerner and Jeanifer E. Parsigian have stepped in to represent Airbnb in a pending patent lawsuit. The complaint was filed Nov. 23 in California Northern District Court by California patent attorney Raj Abhyanker, who claims that Airbnb is willfully infringing his patent related to short term residential rentals in a geospatial environment. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar, is 4:20-cv-08248, Abhyanker v. Airbnb. Stay up on the latest litigation with the new Law.com Radar.