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The experience, finely tuned strategies, relationships, and resources our clients need

Complex and mass actions require an entirely different set of skills and strategies, and they are never one size fits all. From our most junior associate to the most senior partner, we aren’t litigators who also handle complex and class actions. This is what we do — and we do it well.

Class actions can hit any company at any time in any industry. When faced with the daunting task of defending themselves in class actions, companies know to contact us. Our attorneys prosecute and defend lengthy, high-stakes cases in courts around the country — drawing not only on our own deep experience but also our longstanding relationships with courts, judges, and connected local counsel. From contract and consumer disputes to claims alleging product defect, consumer fraud, environmental damage, violations of banking and insurance regulations and laws, antitrust laws and securities fraud, we’ve handled hundreds of class actions and are always prepared for the next one. We also keenly understand the challenges of multiple class actions or mass torts and have deep experience with the strategies necessary to lessen the burden on our clients, whether it’s coordinating transfer and consolidation proceedings or creation of an MDL.

Client goals shape our strategies

Settlement is often the strategy that best meets our clients’ needs, and we know how to negotiate favorable dispositions that avoid the risk and expense of trial. But you can’t settle unless you know how to try the case. We not only have this know-how but, partnering with our general litigation colleagues, are able to serve as a valuable resource for those trial judges who may not have substantial class action experience. This is just one example of how we fully utilize firm resources to lead to better, quicker and more successful outcomes. We devote whatever resources are necessary, expanding our teams as necessary to get the job done.

This isn’t a sporting match

While we were made for this battle, we never lose sight of what we’re fundamentally fighting for. With cases of this scope, it is often our company’s core product being threatened, if not the entire company itself. Our clients’ stockholders, boards, auditors and often all of Wall Street are watching. Their employees depend on us. And because we’re out there, in both the executive offices and on the ground, we also understand the toll that protracted litigation can take on our client’s most important assets — its people. Keeping all of this at the forefront fuels our efforts to resolve these matters as quickly and cleanly as we can.

While our class action practice serves clients in a number of industries, we are especially known for our work with agriculture and food, consumer products, financial services, and media and internet companies, as well as in defending environmental class actions and multidistrict litigation.

Every client is important to us, no matter its size or point in its life cycle. We want to understand your business and your specific long-term goals, which we are invested in helping you achieve.

Our approach is holistic. Practicing law today requires knowledge of your industry and markets. We take the time to get to know you to be a true partner.

We work with clients of all sizes, from startups to well-established, large multinational corporations, addressing their needs efficiently and cost-effectively.

We protect our clients, positioning them in the best possible way to operate their business.

Case Studies

Farmer by Farmer

Client Issue: The world’s largest agribusiness was hit with a nationwide class action, centering on a core product they had just released, with extensive litigation largely sounding in tort claims, failure to warn and third-party negligence. Our mission was to protect the product and keep it on the market.

TC Approach: We individualized the claims as to causation, attacking the “one size fits all” approach the plaintiffs’ counsel asserted.

Outcome: We ultimately achieved a classwide settlement, but (in order to preserve our causation approach) with individual payouts that preserved our causation defenses for future actions.

Defending New Technologies From Ancient Laws

Client issue: With cities across America starved for tax revenue, consultants are looking for creative solutions. Via class action, nearly every city in Missouri alleged that our client, one of the world’s largest telecoms, suddenly owed $1 billion in back taxes, pursuant to laws that were over a century old.

TC Approach: Individualizing the claims, we litigated the case for nine years, until the cities finally saw the value in settling for pennies on the dollar.

Outcome: We secured a resolution not only as to past taxes allegedly owed, but any future ones as well. Best of all, we were able to resolve this matter in a way that preserved the client’s relationship with the municipalities.

Summary Judgment Savvy

Client challenge: A national telecom was facing a five-state class action challenging its core product (essentially, the Internet) and the steps it took to maximize the speed of its service.

TC Approach: We really hammered our liability defenses related to the named plaintiff, winning at summary judgment and sending the plaintiffs scrambling to find another plan.

Outcome: After multiple actions were filed alleging the same claims, we engaged with a panel of plaintiffs’ counsel to craft a creative nationwide class settlement.