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What you need to know

TIME FOR COUNSEL – Harvey Weinstein, who’s staring down criminal investigations in New York, Los Angeles and London, has turned to defense attorneys Benjamin Brafman and Blair Berk to fight the sexual harassment and rape allegations. As Christine Simmons details, both lawyers are white-collar veterans. Brafman, of Brafman & Associates in New York, recently represented Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical executive convicted of securities fraud. Berk, of Tarlow & Berk in West Hollywood, California, is known for representing Hollywood stars in trouble, such as Mel Gibson, Britney Spears and Kiefer Sutherland. READ MORE HERE

WHAT WOMEN WANT – For many of them, it’s not a career in Big Law past a certain age. Women over 40 make up 40 percent of lawyers at law firms, while women over 50 make up only 27 percent. That phenomenon is the focus of the American Bar Association’s Long-Term Careers for Women in Law initiative, Meghan Tribe reports. “If women are leaving because they’re just tired of having fought for all these years and still not being treated how they perceive to be fairly and equally with men, that’s a problem we need to address,” said ABA President Hilarie Bass at the initiative’s kickoff event Wednesday at Harvard Law School. READ MORE HERE

SLOPPY SPENDING – It may be time for some in-house cleaning. Six out of 10 legal departments allocate their legal spend inefficiently, according to a survey by Acritas Research. As Sue Reisinger reports, part of it’s an economy of scale problem. Wrap your head around this: Legal departments with less than $200 million in revenue had more than 10 times the number of lawyers per $100 million of revenue than larger departments with more than $20 billion in revenue. At the same time, the average balance of budget allocated internally didn’t really change by size. READ MORE HERE

VICTORY DANCE – Pundits and statisticians will spend the coming days deciphering the results of Tuesday’s elections, which brought wins for Dems in Virginia, Washington, New Jersey and other states. Among the victors are Venable litigator Justin Fairfax, elected lieutenant governor of Virginia, and Quinn Emanuel’s Jenny Durkan, who’ll be Seattle’s next mayor. The two candidates were also among a wave of minority and LGBT candidates to win office. Fairfax, who’s part of his firm’s state AG practice, is the first African-American to be elected to statewide office in Virginia since 1989, Scott Flaherty notes. And Durkan, who served as U.S. attorney in Seattle under President Obama, is the city’s first lesbian mayor. READ MORE HERE

STUDY UP, YOUR HONOR – An El Paso judge who threatened to arrest an attorney after she failed to appear in his court—because she was on maternity leave—should probably count himself lucky that he got off with a public reprimand. (He was also in trouble over complaints that he picked on jurors, John Council reports.) As part of his punishment, Luis Aguilar must complete eight hours of coursework at the College for New Judges on topics such as “Role of a Judge” and “Listening.” READ MORE HERE

While you were sleeping

MISSED MARK – Three years ago London-based Ashurst announced that it was setting a target in which women would make up one quarter of the equity ranks by 2018. Still a low percentage, but a good idea nevertheless. Turns out, only 15 percent of the firm’s current partners are female. What’s more, Anna Ward reports, in this year’s promotions to partner, just four women were included in the 19-lawyer group, despite a stated 2014 target to have women make up 40 percent of new partner promotions going forward. The good news? The firm set out to have a quarter of all of its management positions held by women by 2018 and has already surpassed that target for wider management positions. READ MORE HERE