Dwindling prosecutor numbers, spying on employees, Stroock's 2021 revenue and lobbying trademarks ??

?? Good morning! District attorneys’ offices across the U.S. are struggling to recruit and retain lawyers, a Chicago plaintiff's firm has been accused of spying on its lawyers, Stroock says its recently departed financial restructuring group generated 29% of its 2021 revenue and two D.C. lobbying firms battle for the 'Monument' trademark. Here's a look at the latest in the industry from?Reuters Legal ??

???? Prosecutors wanted: District attorneys struggle to recruit and retain lawyers

District attorneys’ offices across the U.S. are struggling to recruit and retain lawyers, with some experiencing vacancies of up to 16% and a dearth of applicants for open jobs, according to interviews with more than a dozen top prosecutors and five state and national prosecutors’ associations. The struggle is attributed to the ailing numbers from COVID-19 and increasing concern about racial inequities in the criminal justice system — compounded by long-standing issues with relatively low pay and burnout.

In Utah, open positions in the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office are hovering between 21 and 25 in an office that should have 133 lawyers and attorneys in its special victims’ unit are handling double the number of cases recommended by the American Bar Association, District Attorney Sim Gill said.

“Crime has not dissipated in any significant way to offset the backlog,” Gill said.

The number of cases?the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, Arizona,?prosecuted dropped from nearly two-thirds of felonies referred by law enforcement in 2018 to under half in 2020. And the number of vacancies in the office of 338 attorneys continues to rise — increasing nearly 53% between July 2020 and April 2022.

Meanwhile, a red-hot legal hiring market has widened the pay gap between prosecutors and private-sector attorneys. According to a report from the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, the average salary for entry-level state prosecutors in 2020 was $68,056. Starting salaries for associates at large law firms have soared to $215,000 as of January.

???♂? Chicago plaintiff's firm accused of spying on its lawyers

A former attorney at Vrdolyak Law Group, Daniel Alholm, has?sued?the Chicago-based plaintiff’s law firm, claiming its managing partner, Edward Vrdolyak, illegally eavesdropped on employees through "a network of audio and video surveillance cameras."

Alholm said in the complaint that Edward Vrdolyak had a "fixation" on surveillance, claiming that he finally resigned in 2020 after he learned that the firm recorded all employee phone calls and stored them.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed in Chicago federal court, alleges that Vrdolyak violated the federal Wiretap Act and state laws when he equipped his office with “numerous screens” to monitor employee activity at the firm's offices in Chicago and Nashville, Tennessee.

The proposed class of more than 100 members includes both employees of the personal injury firm and clients who may have been unjustly recorded, the complaint said.

?? Departed Stroock lawyers generated 29% of 2021 revenue

Leaders at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan said the firm remains in strong shape less than two weeks after it?lost 43 restructuring lawyers, including practice leader Kristopher Hansen to Paul Hastings.

The firm's chief operating officer, Ralph Allen, said the financial restructuring group accounted for 29% of Stroock's revenue in 2021, generating about $80 million. But he and Alan Klinger, Stroock's co-managing partner, said the group was "siloed" from other practices, asserting its departure has not been disruptive.

While the restructuring team generated more than a quarter of Stroock's revenue last year, the group's overhead was disproportionately high, Allen said. The firm said after expenses and compensation costs, the group only contributed 6% or 7% of the profit pool shared by partners.

"[The financial restructuring group] took out as much as they brought to the table."

Meanwhile, the departing Stroock lawyers doubled the size of Paul Hastings' restructuring practice, bringing it to 65 lawyers.

?? One D.C. 'Monument' firm sues another in lobbying trademark tiff

Monument Advocacy, a lobbying firm whose clients include Netflix and Starbucks, has sued rival Monument Strategies in Washington, D.C., federal court in a trademark dispute over their names.

Monument Advocacy's lawsuit filed on Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeks an order blocking Monument Strategies from taking any steps to force Monument Advocacy to change its name, stating that it has "invested significant resources in developing and maintaining" its trademarks.

In its?complaint, Monument Advocacy said it holds trademarks for "Monument Advocacy" and "Monument Policy Group." The firm has used Monument Advocacy since 2019 and Monument Policy Group (MPG) since 2006.

The complaint said Monument Strategies, which was founded in 2005, was aware of "the Monument Policy Group trademark since at least 2007, yet Strategies failed to challenge or otherwise object to MPG's use of said trademark.

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