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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

STICKY SITUATION - The previously white-hot lateral talent market has cooled and, now that they have nowhere else to go, lawyers across the country are more willing to settle for their current firms until something better eventually comes along. Retention for the win! Firm leaders and analysts told Law.com's Andrew Maloney that the recent drop in demand has led to less lateral movement, which is now giving firms some space to be more discerning and strategic. Julie Jones, chair of Ropes & Gray, said while there is still some pressure on the lateral market, her firm's attrition has been at pre-pandemic levels and lower since the end of the first quarter. "Now that things have cooled and people have their heads about them, people aren't leaving. I know it reflects a shift in the market. We're no longer in that war-for-talent phase," she said in an interview. "You always need to keep and invest in your talent, but we don't have that frenzy, and we see that in our attrition rates." It's possible that lawyers who have seen business soften are simply playing it safe. David Foltyn, CEO of Honigman, told Maloney that at the moment, his people "are a little stickier than they were last year." That could be because there just isn't as much activity and incentives pulling lawyers away. It could also partly be seasonal, he said, nodding toward compensation systems that reward lawyers at the end of the calendar year. "The way most firms are structured, partners are not advantaged by leaving in the fourth quarter," Foltyn said. "They need to be there to get their proper year-end, and my guess is the associates are waiting to see what kinds of bonuses they get."

UNSETTLED - U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who is overseeing the Roundup multidistrict litigation in San Francisco, has never been one to mince words. So he wasn't about to start mincing when he was recently made aware of U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation data showing that, since the creation of MDLs by statute in 1968, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has remanded only 797 cases for trial. "The statistics suggest there may be something really wrong with the MDL process," he said at a Sept. 7 hearing in the Roundup MDL. "I strongly believe it's not the job of the MDL judge to make sure these cases settle, and to do anything possible to force everybody to settle … [I]t is the job of the MDL judge to get these cases ready for trial." As Law.com's Amanda Bronstad reports, Chhabria's remarks reignited a longstanding debate among judges about their roles in multidistrict litigation, particularly when it comes to encouraging settlements. Under the MDL statute, the judge focuses on "pretrial proceedings," like discovery and motions. If the litigation doesn't settle, the judge can recommend remanding cases in preparation for trials in the courts where they were filed. Yet, for years, most MDL judges have considered settlements as the end goal, viewing remands as signs of failure, said Elizabeth Burch, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, who published a 2014 law review article titled "Remanding Multidistrict Litigation." "The purpose of litigating isn't to force parties to settlement, but that seems to be what is happening in the world of MDLs," she said. "Judges feel a lot of pressure, particularly in these huge mass tort cases, to try to resolve as many of them as possible."

WHO GOT THE WORK?℠ - State Farm Insurance has agreed to make a $1.2 billion equity investment in ADT Inc., resulting in State Farm retaining an approximate 15 percent ownership interest in ADT. Concurrently, State Farm has agreed to invest up to $300 million in an opportunity fund to support technology and product innovation. The transaction, announced Sept. 6, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022. Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm is advised by Sidley Austin. The Sidley Austin team is led by partners Michael Pinsel, Pran Jha, Joe Michaels and Glenn Nash. ADT Inc., which is based in Boca Raton, Florida, is represented by a Cravath, Swaine & Moore team led by partners Robert I. Townsend III, O. Keith Hallam III and Sanjay Murti. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is counseling Apollo Global Management, in connection with providing a backstop on the self-tender from ADT to buy back $1.2 billion of its shares. The Paul Weiss team includes partners Justin Rosenberg and Taurie M. Zeitzer. >> Read the filing 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.