BLIND EYE TO IOLTA? - Wells Fargo was hit with a class action Wednesday in Nevada District Court on behalf of investors who contend that they lost more than $100 million in a Ponzi scheme. The suit, brought by Simons Hall Johnston and other attorneys, arises from an alleged investment scam which unraveled in March when Las Vegas attorney Matthew Wade Beasley was shot and apprehended by the FBI. The complaint alleges that Wells Fargo aided and abetted the scheme by ignoring suspicious activity involving an IOLTA account at the bank. Counsel have not yet appeared for the defendant. The case is 2:22-cv-00654, Pmm3, LLC et al v. Wells Fargo Bank. N.A. S tay up on the latest deals and litigation with the new Law.com Radar.
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CHARGING UP - As we noted above, if you’re going to raise rates, you should talk to your clients about it. If you don’t—well, they’ll probably see it coming anyway, but they probably won’t be happy. As Law.com International’s Varsha Patel reports, the proportion of U.K. in-house counsel expecting to spend more on external legal work in 2022 has risen sharply, as businesses continue to adapt to a post-pandemic and post-Brexit market. The percentage of legal buyers planning to increase overall legal spend subtracted by those planning to decrease spend hit 23%, up from 1.1% the previous year, according to a Thomson Reuters survey of 265 senior corporate counsel. It is by far the highest net figure in the last five years. Respondents to the survey included chief legal officers, assistant GCs and legal operations heads, with 25% of respondents coming from financial institutions and 15% from technology and media companies. The report noted: “The new reality may be contributing to an attitude among U.K. legal buyers and corporate clients that while the worst may be over, there will remain an acute need for quality legal work as the world’s economies continues to right themselves.”
