Legal News

Settling For Dollars: Here?s Who Landed 2008?s Big Securities Settlements

By Nathan Koppel

Purveyors of this little field we like to call the law generally do pretty well, financially, and some do a darn sight better than that; the global economic meltdown notwithstanding.

But then there are securities class actions lawyers. Those folks, especially the leaders in the field, can operate in a whole other financial strata; think hedge fund manager. Or at least a middling hedge-fund manager.

That's why we stand in abject awe annually when Securities Class Action Services, a unit of RiskMetrics Group, releases its annual rankings of the top 50 securities class actions firms, as measured by the total dollar value of their settlements from the previous year. (Click here for this year’s study.)

Tops this year was Bernstein Litowitz, which snared $711 million in settlements. That firm was followed by Barroway Topaz of Philly, at $531 million in settlements, and San Diego juggernaut Coughlin Stoia, at a cool $484 million. Surprisingly, despite its well-publicized troubles, Milberg is hanging strong, ranked seventh, with a combined 13 settlements worth $253 million.

Ranked by the average size of their settlements, Grant & Eisenhofer of New York and Delaware was tops, with an average settlement of $108 million.

Of course, these firms do face one nagging detail: Their settlements must be approved by a court, and withstand a rash of objectors who typically show up come settlement time to complain that the lead plaintiffs' firms have done a lousy job. Furthermore, as noted here, no firm topped $1 billion in settlements this year, the first in the past six in which no one’s cracked that barrier.

Still, for a day at least, let us dream about how phat it would be to divvy the spoils of a $100-plus million securities class-action settlement.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 25, 2009 (boomark / email).