Michele Gorman

Legal department hires over the last month included high-profile appointments at Wynn Resorts, Amtrak and eBay. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from September.

Steelcase's legal leader, who has made her career in-house at the U.S. furniture designer and manufacturer, plans to retire in December, according to a securities filing on Wednesday, and the company will soon begin a search for her replacement.

With the increasingly dynamic role of the top corporate lawyer playing out across sectors — as well as stock awards that far outpace the amounts they see in their salaries and bonuses — the pay packages for most general counsel and chief legal officers continue to stay strong.

The total compensation packages for in-house counsel at different levels of the corporate ladder can vary widely, with especially large variations seen in bonus amounts and long-term incentives, according to a new Law360 Pulse report.

Most legal professionals historically have emphasized the need for young attorneys to gain firm experience immediately after law school. However, that thought is shifting, as more junior lawyers graduate and go directly to a corporate legal team — movement that could eventually take hold as the in-house legal department continues to rise in prominence within businesses.

The total compensation packages for in-house counsel at different levels of the corporate ladder can vary widely, with especially large variations seen in bonus amounts and long-term incentives, according to a new Law360 Pulse report.

Expand Energy, which formed this week from the merger of U.S. natural gas producers Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy, has picked the general counsel of one of the former entities to lead its legal department, according to a recent securities filing.

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP led this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions after a Delaware federal jury decided on Sept. 27 that Amazon Web Services infringed two computer network patents that were once owned by Boeing, telling the tech giant to pay $30.5 million in damages.

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP led this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions after a Delaware federal jury decided on Sept. 27 that Amazon Web Services infringed two computer network patents that were once owned by Boeing, telling the tech giant to pay $30.5 million in damages.

To some, a recent report's finding that nearly 60% of legal department leaders expect a reduced reliance on outside legal service providers due to GenAI might be gloomy, but many lawyers view the innovations as a way for clients and counsel to strengthen their relationships.