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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Securities Law Disclosure Conundrum For Publicly Traded Litigation Finance Companies, Robert F. Weber
The Securities Law Disclosure Conundrum For Publicly Traded Litigation Finance Companies, Robert F. Weber
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Article examines a peculiar legal dilemma—implicating securities law, legal ethics, and evidence law—that arises when litigation finance companies (LFCs) become public companies. LFCs provide funding to litigants and law firms for prosecuting lawsuits in exchange for a share of the lawsuit recoveries. In recent years, LFCs have significantly altered the landscape of the civil justice system in common law jurisdictions. But their assets, which are just rights to proceeds from lawsuits, are notoriously opaque— who really can predict what a jury will do when it comes to liability and damages? When LFCs go public, this opacity frustrates public investors’ …
The Short Unhappy Life Of The Negotiation Class, Linda S. Mullenix
The Short Unhappy Life Of The Negotiation Class, Linda S. Mullenix
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
On September 11, 2019, Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, approved a novel negotiation class certification in the massive Opiate multidistrict litigation (MDL). Merely one year later on September 24, 2020, the Sixth Circuit reversed Judge Polster’s certification order. While the Opiate MDL has garnered substantial media and academic attention, less consideration has been directed to analyzing the significance of the negotiation class model and the appellate repudiation of this innovative procedural mechanism.
This Article focuses on the development and fate of the negotiation class and considers the …