When shareholder class actions began rolling in against Toyota Motor Corp., senior partners from more than a half-dozen of the nation’s most prominent law firms piled into a Los Angeles courtroom to make their case for lead counsel status. Among them were lawyers from Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Labaton Sucharow. In the end, Gerald Silk, a partner at New York’s Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, accepted the coveted position.
The Toyota litigation was the latest high-profile case to attract a set of plaintiffs’ securities firms that have become increasingly competitive regulars in the fight for lead counsel status in big-ticket shareholder litigation — especially litigation with settlement potential of $100 million or more. Aside from Robbins Geller, Labaton and Bernstein Litowitz, firms such as Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check, based in Radnor, Pa., and New York-based Milberg are also in the hunt.
