Class Action
Class action lawsuits threaten business plans and company reputations. It goes without saying that they must therefore be handled carefully and professionally. Just as critical to success, they must be managed aggressively. Hinshaw represents clients both with respect to plaintiff classes and defendant classes. We have considerable experience representing corporate clients as defendants in class actions, as well as consumer financial services litigation.
Our Experience
We have effectively and efficiently defended countless class action lawsuits filed in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Subjects of the cases that we have handled include:
We also have vast experience counseling businesses in cases that often result in class actions such as those involving insurance coverage, products liability and toxic torts.
Having defended so many class action lawsuits, we know full well that as counsel, our activities outside the courtroom are just as important as those inside it. We can happily point to the fact that our litigators routinely defeat class certification, obtain de-certification of classes in cases of both local and national scope, and obtain pre-certification dismissals. We also commonly recover summary judgments in favor of our clients. In many cases, these outcomes follow from our class discovery efforts, an activity with which we are particularly skilled.
Sometimes, the courtroom is unavoidable in a class action lawsuit. Our experience briefing and arguing these cases at trial and, where necessary, on appeal, is formidable. We have practiced before the Multi-District Panel, and have served as lead defense counsel in class action hearings in federal multi-district litigation. We have also argued important issues of first impression with respect to class action practice and procedure.
Our Clients
Clients that we have defended in class action lawsuits have come from the automotive, banking and financial institutions, consumer products, construction and construction materials, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceuticals and transportation industries, among others. We also represent several municipalities in class action lawsuits.
Our Geographic Scope
Hinshaw maintains offices in the unique class action legal environments that are most troublesome to class action defendants, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Southern Illinois venues of St. Clair and Madison County. It takes attorneys who are particularly adapted, from years of successful practice in these venues, to successfully defend corporate clients in such harsh jurisdictions.