In years past, when I was a budding class-action nerd at O’Melveny & Myers, I used to look forward to the ABA’s annual convention on class actions. While I couldn’t go myself (not cost-justified for baby lawyers), John Beisner would always come back and circulate Professor John Coffee’s Five-Year Reviews of class action law. I
John Coffee
Classic Scholarship – Class Wars: The Dilemma of the Mass Tort Class Action
By The Editors on
Posted in Settlement
Mass torts have long been a problem for the American judicial system. Today, it’s Vioxx, the BP oil spill, and Chinese drywall. Fifteen years ago, it was asbestos, Agent Orange, and silicone gel breast implants. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when mass torts first threatened to overwhelm crowded…
Litigation Governance: Taking Adequacy Seriously
By The Editors on
Posted in Lawyers
Last March, dean of class action scholarship John Coffee Jr. published an article in the Columbia Law Review titled "Litigation Governance: Taking Accountability Seriously." Coffee’s argument is that, from a corporate governance perspective, there are two ways to keep an organization’s leaders accountable: "exit" and "voice." In other words, judges and legislators can…