Class Action

Expert Analysis

• Series

  Pursuing Wellness: Steps Toward A Supportive Firm Culture

  

  As an early advocate of the American Bar Association's year-old well-being pledge, we launched an integrated program to create and sustain a supportive workplace culture with initiatives focused on raising mental health awareness, embracing creativity and giving back to the community, says Casey Ryan at Reed Smith.

• Perspectives

  Bill Limiting Forced Arbitration Is Critical To Real Justice

  

  Real justice means having access to fair and independent courts, but that will only be a reality when Congress bans predispute, forced arbitration under federal law with the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, which passed the House on Friday, says Patrice Simms at Earthjustice.

• Series

  Pursuing Wellness: Mental Health Education As A Firm Priority

  

  Our firm drives a holistic concept of well-being through educational opportunities, such as a series of expert-led workshops intended to address mental health and substance abuse issues that we vowed to fight when we signed the American Bar Association's well-being pledge one year ago, says Krista Logelin at Morgan Lewis.

• Series

  Pursuing Wellness: A Firm's Work With Mental Health Experts

  

  Signing the American Bar Association's well-being pledge last year was a natural progression of our firm's commitment to employee wellness, which has included developing partnerships with professionals in the mental health space to provide customized programming to firm attorneys and staff, say Annette Sciallo and Mark Goldberg at Latham.

• Marriott Order Good News For Cybersecurity Class Action Bar

  

  A Maryland federal judge's recent decree ordering Marriott to release a crucial third-party report revealing key details about how a data breach occurred could have significant ramifications for plaintiffs filing class actions following breaches of customer data at other companies, says cybersecurity consultant John Reed Stark.

• The State Of TCPA Litigation 1 Year After Marks V. Crunch

  

  The Ninth Circuit's 2018 decision in Marks v. Crunch, interpreting the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to cover any dialer that calls from a stored list of numbers automatically, has been applied by district courts all around the country, but one year later, its impact appears to be faltering, says Eric Troutman of Squire Patton.

• Series

  Pursuing Wellness: When A Firm Brings Counseling On Site

  

  One year ago, our firm signed the American Bar Association's well-being pledge and embraced a commitment to providing on-site behavioral health resources, which has since become a key aspect of our well-being program, say Meg Meserole and Kimberly Merkel at Akin Gump.

• Series

  Pursuing Wellness: Inside A Firm Meditation Program

  

  After our firm signed the American Bar Association’s well-being pledge one year ago, we launched two key programs that included weekly meditation sessions and monthly on-site chair massages to help people address both the mental and physical aspects of working at a law firm, says Marci Eisenstein at Schiff Hardin.

• Consumer Class Standing Faces Uncertainty In 11th Circ.

  

  An eventual resolution of whether unnamed class members are required to establish Article III standing by the Eleventh Circuit, together with its recent Telephone Consumer Protection Act decision in Salcedo v. Hanna, may alter the continued viability of TCPA class actions, as well as class claims brought under other consumer protection laws, say attorneys at Stumphauzer Foslid.

• Early Sampling Of Electronic Info Is Underutilized In Discovery

  

  The early and prompt provision of samples from all electronically stored information sources as a part of ESI protocol search methodology is consistent with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and may allow for significant cost savings during discovery, says Zachary Caplan at Berger Montague.

• Opinion

  PG&E Bankruptcy Will Test Shareholder Capitalism

  

  If the Pacific Gas and Electric bankruptcy allows for the underestimation of tort creditors' claims to leave value for existing shareholders, it will represent an enormous failure that would call into question the fairness of our shareholder capitalism system, says researcher J.B. Heaton.

• Calif. Privacy Law Could Alter Litigation Risks Nationwide

  

  Perhaps the greatest challenge to businesses covered by the California Consumer Privacy Act is that the CCPA creates a private right of action, with substantial statutory damages, a change that will likely reset data breach litigation risks in California as well as the rest of the country, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

• The Factors Courts Consider In Deposition Location Disputes

  

  In the absence of a federal rule governing deposition location, federal courts are frequently called on to resolve objections to out-of-state deposition notices. Recent decisions reveal what information is crucial to courts in making the determination, says Kevin O’Brien at Porter Wright.

• FDCPA Takeaways From 3rd Circ. QR Code Opinion

  

  The Third Circuit's decision in DiNaples v. MRS BPO that a debt collection letter with a QR code on the envelope violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act may seem straightforward, but the opinion sheds light on how two common FDCPA defense tools remain somewhat viable, say Jason Tompkins and Jonathan Hoffmann at Balch & Bingham.

• 9th Circ. Could Mend Split On Class Rules For PAGA Claims

  

  There is reason to doubt the position of California district courts that decline to apply federal class action requirements to representative Private Attorneys General Act claims, an issue that has created a divide that the Ninth Circuit is poised to resolve in Canela v. Costco, say Felix Shafir and John Querio at Horvitz & Levy.