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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

CAPITAL GAINS - When you think of litigation finance's target demographic, Big Law is probably not the first segment of the legal industry that comes to mind. But that could be about to change. As Law.com's Dan Packel reports, large law firms significantly stepped up their use of lit funding in 2021, according to a new report released Wednesday by broker Westfleet Advisors, with the share of total funding commitments that were made to firms in the Am Law 200 rising by 46% from the previous year. These firms were privy to 41% of the 426 new deals initiated by litigation funders in the past calendar year, a total figure that was well up from the 312 deals closed in 2020. And 53% of the portfolio deals, which involve a group of multiple cases, inked in the same interval went to Am Law 200 firms, up a striking 488% from 2020. "They are using portfolio deals in greater numbers and with greater [amounts] of capital allocated to that," Westfleet founder Charles Agee said of Big Law. So what's going on? Agee speculated that this growth among the Am Law 200 is a consequence of both greater comfort with the ethics of litigation funding among law firm lawyers and also the greater ease of pursuing portfolios in particular. "It can be laborious and time consuming to raise capital case-by-case," he said. "There are strong business reasons why firms are putting these broader multi-case arrangements in place."

LIVIN' LA VIDA VUCA - As Law.com's Heather Nevitt writes in this week's Law.com Barometer newsletter, if there was one overarching theme at Legalweek 2022 from in-house leaders, it's that they are in a VUCA environment. For those who haven't heard that term before, it's become a trendy managerial acronym for "volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity." To be fair, we're pretty much all on a permanent vacation in VUCA-ville right about now. But for CLOs, it's on a whole other level. As Nevitt notes, legal department leaders are constantly trying to navigate the shifting sand beneath their feet on a daily basis while also trying to anticipate what is around the corner. Max Hübner, managing director of Novagraaft Netherlands, said weathering the insanity requires building the right team. "When looking at our workforce: think ahead," Hübner said. "What do you need for skill sets by the end of this year and next year? Do not worry too much about knowledge, the difference is made in skills: business savvy, resilience, flexibility and tech-savvy. The world will be VUCA for a while, this calls for anticipating continuous changing challenges." To receive the Law.com Barometer directly to your inbox each week, click here.

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - David H. Bernstein, Megan K. Bannigan and Justin C. Ferrone from Debevoise & Plimpton have stepped in to represent hotel operator Standard International Management in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Feb. 17 in New York Southern District Court by Baker & Hostetler on behalf of JWR Holdings and real estate firm Landmark Properties Inc., pursues claims against Standard for its ongoing use of 'the standard' mark. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton, is 1:22-cv-01364, Jwr Holdings, LLC et al v. Standard International Management, LLC. >>Read the complaint on Law.com Radar and check out the most recent edition of Law.com's Who Got the Work?℠ column to find out which law firms and lawyers are being brought in to handle key cases and close major deals for their clients.