question: You see in movies/TV often where someone has a clear cut lawsuit against a company, but find out “they have million dollar lawyers that will tie you up in court and bankrupt you in fees” How much of that is reality versus Hollywood?
comment: A little true, a little false. Thing thing about large companies is that they don't want to pay those million dollar lawyers either. They will always take the cheaper option. If a lawsuit is totally false, but they have to pay those million dollar lawyers to prove it, most big companies will settle and pay someone who does not deserve it because it's the cheaper option. Conversely, if the lawsuit is a huge one and paying those million dollar lawyars is cheaper, they will do that. It's all about the dollar signs. Sometimes the big corporations are actually at a disadvantage, because they have to pay their lawyers out of pocket, while lawyers specializing in lawsuits will work for nothing unless they win if they are confident of winning. The plaintiff in that case has nothing to lose. So--it depends.
passages: According to Darby Dickenson, Dean of the Stetson University School of Law, "The opinion does help the public see some of the sharp and shady practices of at least some of these companies. The fact that someone was willing to take on the company and litigate for several years is significant."
  
  Section::::Recent case developments.
  
  In September 2010, the following statement was posted on Carroll's numerous term-paper websites:
  
  Section::::What others have said.
   If the insurer chooses to defend, it may either defend the claim with its own in-house lawyers (where allowed), or give the claim to an outside law firm on a "panel" of preferred firms which have negotiated a standard fee schedule with the insurer in exchange for a regular flow of work. The decision to defend under a reservation of rights must be undertaken with extreme caution in jurisdictions where the insured has a right to independent counsel, also known as Cumis counsel.
   BULLET::::- Scored a $93.8 million jury award for pharmaceutical giant AbbVie Inc. in a royalty dispute with MedImmune
  
  BULLET::::- Represented MedTronic in a billion-dollar patent suit win against Atlas IP, LLC
  
  BULLET::::- Scored a $73.6 million trade secrets misappropriation jury award against Caterpillar Inc. in favor of supplier Miller UK Ltd., believed to be the largest verdict of its kind in Illinois
  
  BULLET::::- Represented Jeffrey Epstein in a case of sex-trafficking with minors
  
  BULLET::::- Represents Bain Capital in various controlling interest private equity transactions
  
  BULLET::::- Toys R Us restructuring
   Eclipse CE Roel Pieper responded to this story saying: "I think there will be no judge who will do that. I'm disappointed that these people think that way, but that is because of the previous culture and attitude around Eclipse, and I would have hoped that these people would give us the time to fix what needs to be fixed and then come back to us. I think most of them will understand that there are so many other financial obligations that doing something like this makes no sense, just causes more damage, and then they're not going to get any money anyway. I would be surprised if a bankruptcy judge would even go there with all the jobs at stake and all the other obligations at stake. I'm disappointed that these people hold a grudge against the company while they see the company changing."
   The lawsuit was later dropped, and Faithauer gave the following statement: “"I worked at Skully, Inc. from May 2014 to December 2015. In developing the company, Marcus Weller and Mitchell Weller came up with a great concept for the business and it was a good place to work. After I was let go by the company, I was upset and hired an attorney who filed a lawsuit against Skully, Inc., Marcus Weller, and Mitchell Weller based on my understanding of the facts and circumstances at that time. However, through discovery, I learned that there were many facts, documents, and information that could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that my claims were totally without merit. My attorney concurred in this assessment, which is one of the reasons I dismissed my claims against the Wellers and agreed to settle for a mutual release of claims. I wish Marcus Weller and Mitchell Weller good luck in their future."” 
   BULLET::::- Represented BP in relation to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; secured a summary judgment ruling in favor of BP that it had no duty to report the Deepwater Horizon oil spill under the U.S. Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
  
  BULLET::::- Represented Volkswagen in relation to the Volkswagen emissions scandal
  
  BULLET::::- Represented General Motors in relation to the General Motors ignition switch scandal
  
  BULLET::::- Defended Nike, Inc. against trademark infringement claims regarding the Jumpman logo, protecting $2 billion in annual business for the company
   The pursuit of compensation for asbestos injuries often involves both litigation against solvent defendants and filing claims against asbestos bankruptcy trusts.
  
  The amount of compensation recovered by an injured plaintiff may depend on whether evidence of exposure to products from bankrupt firms is introduced at trial. If no evidence of exposure from bankrupt firms is presented then increased financial responsibility is likely to be assigned to solvent defendants. Researchers from RAND Corporation found that if a company filed for bankruptcy plaintiffs claimed exposure to their products in interrogatories and depositions at significantly reduced rates.
   BULLET::::- Injured individuals sometimes argue that they are independent contractors who can sue in tort—e.g. Eckis v. Sea World, holding that plaintiff, who was bitten by Shamu the killer whale while riding Shamu at Seaworld, was not a contractor but an employee, and so could not sue in tort.
   In May 2012, Arthur Lieberman, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Counsel of POW!, died due to lung cancer. Also in May, POW! filed suit against Valerie Barth of Media Dynamics and Ron Sandman, sole director of UltraVision Inc., for fraud and breach of contract, claiming it is owed $1.15 million for a three-million common stock subscription. Barth, Sandman and their corporations countersued.
  
  In March 2013, Hub Network picked up its first work from POW, "Stan Lee's Mighty 7", an animated pilot movie to be aired in early 2014.
   BakerHostetler, through partner Irving Picard and his team, has been overseeing the liquidation of Bernard Madoff’s firm in bankruptcy court, and has so far recovered over $13 billion—about 70 percent of approved claims—by suing those who profited from the scheme, whether they knew of the scheme or not. Kathy Bazoian Phelps, a bankruptcy lawyer at Diamond McCarthy, said "That kind of recovery is extraordinary and atypical,” as clawbacks in such schemes range from 5 percent to 30 percent, and many victims don’t get anything. Picard has successfully pursued not only investors, but spouses and estates of those who profited, such as the wife of Bernard Madoff (Ruth Madoff), the widow and estate of the deceased Stanley Chais, and the estate of the deceased Jeffry Picower and Picower's widow Barbara, with whom he reached a $7.2 billion settlement (the largest civil forfeiture payment in US history).
   The film also discussed in great depth how "Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants" is often used and misused to describe a frivolous lawsuit and referenced in conjunction with tort reform efforts. It argued that corporations have spent millions distorting certain tort cases in order to promote tort reform.
  
  Section::::"Jamie Leigh Jones v. Halliburton Co.".
   Knowing that PG&E could slow any settlement for years through delays and appeals, Ed decides to arrange for disposition by binding arbitration, but a large majority of the plaintiffs must agree to this. Erin returns to Hinkley and persuades all 634 plaintiffs to go along. While she is there, a man named Charles Embry approaches her to say that he and his cousin were PG&E employees, but his cousin recently died from the poison. The man says he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but, "as it turns out, [he] wasn't a very good employee".
   BULLET::::- Any case that is not related to the DIFC, where both parties consent to using the SCT and either i) where the amount of the claim or the value of the subject matter of the claim does not exceed AED 500,000 or ii) where the claim is related to an employment issue of any claim amount.
  
  Section::::Pro Bono.
   (7) if the relevant market is clearly defined and the alleged undertaking does not have dominant market position, normally it is not necessary to conduct an abuse behavior analysis and it can be directly concluded that such undertaking did not have abuse behavior; however, if neither the boundary of the relevant market nor the dominant market position of the alleged undertaking is clear or if the alleged undertaking had dominant market position, “effect examination” may be carried out so as to determine if the alleged conduct was lawful or not
   A handful of law-firms are known to specialize in this type of litigation including Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC , Labaton Sucharow, LLP , Levi & Korsinsky, LLP , Pomerantz, LLP , Grant and Eisenhofer, Steinmeyer Law, and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP. Class action securities litigation has been a lucrative field due to large settlements, the largest historic settlements being Enron Corporation at 
  
  $7,227,390,000, WorldCom, Inc.$6,133,000,000, and Tyco International Ltd.$3,200,000,000.
   “By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts,” Silver and her fellow "New York Times" reporters explained, “companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.” The reporters combed through thousands of federal court records between 2010 and 2014 and conducted interviews with people involved in those cases to produce the series.
   BULLET::::- Resignation of Shirley Sherrod#Class action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Ringtone#Lawsuits
  
  BULLET::::- RiverCity Motorway#Lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Shannon, Quebec#Cancer cluster (in Canada)
  
  BULLET::::- Shell Oil Company#Polybutylene lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Singapore Power#Lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal#New York and California class action suits
  
  BULLET::::- Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy#Legal action
  
  BULLET::::- System access fee#Class action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Water contamination in Crestwood, Illinois#Second class action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Water contamination in Crestwood, Illinois#Third class-action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- TD Ameritrade#Security breach and resulting identity theft risk and class action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Tekelec#Shareholder class action lawsuit
  
  BULLET::::- Tenaha, Texas#Class action
  
  BULLET::::- Texas City Disaster#Legal case
   Embry gives Erin the documents, which include a 1966 memo proving corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, did nothing about it, and advised the Hinkley operation to keep this secret. The judge orders PG&E to pay a settlement amount of $333 million to be distributed among the plaintiffs, five million of which goes to the Jensens.
  
  In the aftermath, Ed hands Erin her bonus payment for the case but warns her he has changed the amount. She states that she deserves more respect, but is astonished to find that he has increased it—to $2 million.
  
  Section::::Cast.
   "In 20 years, I have never seen a defendant sue on breach of settlement," Rothstein told them. "The whole idea is that it's secret. Why would they sue?"
  
  Although it did not appear completely legitimate, and it might have appeared that the plaintiffs were short-changed, it makes sense to the potential investor. The idea seems solid. The investor thinks that with enough of these cases at Rothstein's law firm, he could make huge sums of money.
   The firm also successfully represented CBS in its long-running effort to overturn fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission over the Janet Jackson’s "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl.
  
  Section::::History.
   The methodology of studies utilized by industry spokespeople has been heavily criticized. Inflated claims for damages and allegations of economic harm are common in copyright disputes. Some studies and figures, including those cited by the MPAA and RIAA with regards to the economic effects of film and music downloads, have been widely disputed as based on questionable assumptions which resulted in statistically unsound numbers.
  
  In one extreme example, the RIAA claimed damages against LimeWire totaling $75 trillion – more than the global GDP – and "respectfully" disagreed with the judge's ruling that such claims were "absurd".
   Section::::United States.:Debates over individual reforms in the United States.:Loser pays.
  
  Nearly every Western democracy follows the "English rule," which requires the loser of a civil suit to compensate the winner for his or her attorney's fees. For example, after authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh lost their plagiarism litigation over "The Da Vinci Code" in a British court, they were ordered to pay the defendants' $1.75 million in attorneys' fees. 
   In the case of "A retailer vs Ms B & Ms K", the first civil recovery case to proceed to full trial, Judge Charles Harris QC dismissed the retailers claim, made up almost entirely of £82.50 for "staff/management time investigating and/or dealing with the incident", in its entirety and permission to appeal was refused. The claim was rejected on the principle set out in Aerospace Publishing Limited v Thames Water Utilities Limited [2007], that the claimant had failed to demonstrate that its security staff had been diverted from ordinary duties.
  
  Section::::United States.
   BULLET::::- As National Counsel to Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin (KPT), developed, negotiated and secured approval for a landmark global class action settlement and negotiated the settlement for "In re: Chinese-Manufactured Drywall Products Liability Litigation."
  
  BULLET::::- Obtained a $15 million verdict in favor of client Ateliers de la Haute-Garonne, a leading French airplane parts manufacturer, and its fully owned subsidiary F2C2 Systems SAS in a case alleging patent infringement, trade dress infringement, unfair competition and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage against German rival Broetje Automation and its American subsidiary Broetje Automation USA.
   Atlantic Legal has challenged class action lawsuits against corporations where abuse of procedure may have occurred. Such cases include "Ruben v. Honeywell International" and "Wal-Mart v. Dukes", where Atlantic Legal filed briefs in support of Honeywell and Wal-Mart to ensure that the courts used proper procedure, including respecting due process rights, in determining the cases.
  
  The Foundation was an early proponent of preservation of the attorney-client privilege against compulsory waiver of that essential protection where corporate misconduct has been alleged.
  
  Section::::Programs.:School Choice.
  