For the first time, white men made up less than half of all judges appointed by a federal judicial panel to lead multidistrict litigation in 2018, and a Miami case is proof of that.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which appoints judges to oversee MDLs, transferred coordinated proceedings last year to 28 judges, including 11 white males. Historically, white men have made up the majority of MDL transferee judges, but in 2017 their representation dropped to 52 percent. Minority judges, meanwhile, reached a record number.