“Hong Kong Lawsuit Against Latham Exposes Big Law’s Systemic Failures” —

• “A lawsuit filed with the Hong Kong High Court in late December has created a ruckus in the legal community in Asia. A former Latham & Watkins counsel is suing the firm and one of its equity partners for fraudulent misrepresentation. Tingfei Fan claims she was constructively dismissed after raising issues with management over alleged misconduct by partners at the firm. Latham & Watkins has vehemently denied the allegations.”
• “Her claim includes assertions that she was led by her supervising partner to believe that she was being put up for promotion to income partner for three years but only later found out from other management-level partners that that never happened. She claims this is despite her bringing in more than$19 million in legal fees and revenue between 2020 to 2024.”
• “But the devil’s also in the details. According to the court documents, the plaintiff, who worked at Latham in Hong Kong for close to a decade, alleged that the equity partner, Ji Liu, who is named as a defendant in the case, disregarded ‘potential conflict of interests by not generating a client matter file or number or doing so under a different client file or matter and directing those under his supervision to work on such matters without a conflict check.'”
• “One partner at a U.S. firm described that particular allegation as ‘egregious misconduct,’ if true.”
• “Latham has refuted the claims in a statement to Law.com International, calling them ‘baseless’ and ‘meritless’ and labelling the case an ’employment matter’ brought by someone who has not been at the firm for over 18 months. The case is due to be played out in court.”
• “One lawyer said some allegations regarding credit misappropriation are ‘not misaligned’ to their experience at the firm but hastened to add that it ‘happens everywhere.'”
• One former Latham partner who had worked in the Hong Kong office for over a decade and is now a regional general counsel at a Fortune 500 company, commented on my LinkedIn post last week about the lawsuit: ‘Not surprised, not new facts, not new culture.’ She did not respond to a request for further comments.”
  Some of the Latham clients I spoke to last week said the U.S. firm’s lawyers who have done work for them ‘have been excellent’ and’ every firm has bad eggs.’ Yet two said that they are curious how Latham will deal with the matter internally.”
• “The allegations against Latham illustrate the many systemic failures in the business of law that we have somehow grown resigned to. But common practice is not best practice.”
• “What I find most difficult to come to terms with is the fact that a lawyer’s career path and trajectory (or the lack thereof) can hinge on just one supervising partner, who incidentally also needs your subordination to sustain or increase their take each year.”
• “But what if Fan’s claims are true? Where are the checks and balances in place to ensure that all associates and counsel are given due consideration so that no one is forsaken in their pursuit of partnership, even if ultimately they don’t succeed?”
• “Are there processes in place to ensure no one in the lower ranks is being held down or left behind? Are office managing partners and regional leaders taking charge and resolving such intractable conflicts?”

The WSJ Editorial Board Writes: “Alaska Dumps Some Trial Lawyers” —

• “Trial lawyers’ contracts with state governments have been a walking conflict of interest for years and more states are calling an end to it. The latest is Alaska, which on Friday terminated its relationship with Baron & Budd, the notorious Texas plaintiffs firm.”
• “In a letter to the firm, the office of Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox said Baron & Budd was being dismissed after the firm disclosed that it represents more than 300 clients in cases that overlap with state litigation on chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Alaska says those relationships create a conflict of interest with state litigation on similar matters and should have been flagged long ago.”
• “Under the terms of the state’s 2021 contract with Baron & Budd, the firm was required to ‘immediately notify’ the state of ‘any potential or actual conflict of interest’ and ‘fully disclose the nature of the conflict.’ The conflicts weren’t disclosed until November, when Alaska asked lawyers with state contracts to provide such information.”
• “When it submitted its list, Baron & Budd told Alaska it was ‘aware of no conflict of interest that arises from our simultaneous representation of Alaska and these listed clients.'”
• “But how does that work? Representing multiple entities in pursuit of the same pots of money is a zero-sum game. If a firm shares documents or legal strategies with multiple parties, who benefits and at whose expense?”
• “The trial lawyer firing is the second round for Alaska, which dismissed South Carolina-based Motley Rice in October for cause over that firm’s conflicts of interest. The state said at the time that Motley had filed civil lawsuits for private clients that raised many of the same issues as those ‘raised in the litigation for which the firm represents the State.'”
• “Montana, Iowa, Kansas and Utah have also dismissed plaintiffs’ firms in recent years, and Alaska’s terminations are a welcome shake-up for the plaintiffs bar. Kudos to AG Cox for the legal stable-cleaning.”