Legal News

2007 Was Record Year for Securities Settlements; Milberg on Top

By Dan Slater

ISS’s Securities Class Actions Services sent out its SCAS 50 for the year 2007, listing the top 50 plaintiffs’ law firms, ranked by the total dollar amount of final securities class action settlements occurring in 2007 in which the firm served as lead or co-lead counsel. Milberg Weiss topped the list, with a little over $3.8 billion in recoveries, while Grant & Eisenhofer had the highest per-settlement average — five settlements, averaging $690.26 million per settlement.

The list was passed on to us by Adam Savett (pictured), an ISS vice president, former securities litigator and the author of the Lies, Damn Lies & Forward Looking Statements blog.

“There were more settlements in 2007 than at any other time in history,” writes Savett. He says Milberg, Schiffrin Barroway and Grant & Eisenhofer all moved up in the rankings this year due, at least in part, to the finalization of the Tyco securities class action settlements. “We can expect the number of new cases filed to continue trending at or above historical levels, due in part to the ongoing expansion of the subprime fallout.”

Here are the top five firms in the category of total settlement value:

Milberg Weiss — $3,804,625,000
Grant & Eisenhofer — $3,451,300,000
Schiffrin Barroway — $3,302,265,000
Coughlin Stoia — $1,853,990,000
Bernstein Litowitz — $1,338,110,000

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).