When lawyers were tossing around names to submit to the judge for a potential plaintiffs leadership team two years ago in a multidistrict litigation proceeding, Amy Keller at Chicago's DiCello Levitt threw her name in. After all, she had experience, serving as co-lead counsel in the MDL over the Equifax data breach.

"One of the attorneys, who was a man, made the comment of how I had already been appointed co-lead counsel in two other cases, and he was concerned I would not be able to handle a third case," Keller recalled in an interview. "I found that very interesting because never in my career have I ever heard someone say, 'Oh, can he handle another case?'"

Keller said "thinly veiled sexism" still exists in the mass tort and class action bar. But for her part, she moved on to other cases, and has notched six MDL appointments in the course of four years.