Littler Mendelson is one of the preeminent law firms in employment class actions, defending clients in hundreds of wage and hour, discrimination and other workplace-related disputes. Our remarkable record is due to our vast experience and comprehensive understanding of substantive employment laws, procedure, and statistical analysis – crucial elements in these complex cases.  This expertise is evident in our treatise, Littler Mendelson on Employment Law Class Actions, and our annual Class Action Summit, at which Littler lawyers team with nationally renowned experts to provide our clients with cutting-edge analyses of class action issues.

From January 2006 to July 2011, Littler has defended clients in more than 900 class actions. With almost 200 lawyers in our practice group, we have a number of nationally known leaders in areas that are unique to class actions who either can lead the defense or step in at critical junctures of each case.

We also rely on our extensive experience with arbitration to help clients limit their exposure to class actions. Littler is a recognized leader in understanding how federal and state arbitration statutes interface with class action procedures. Just last year, Littler lawyers successfully appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to successfully argue principles that were relied on by the Supreme Court in AT&T v. Concepcion, which upheld the use of arbitration agreements as a means of limiting class action litigation.

At Littler, we also partner with our clients and provide access to a wealth of resources and timely information that enables them to stay abreast of case developments and monitor costs throughout the litigation.

Time-Tested Strategies and Specialization

Over the years, Littler has developed successful class action strategies that have also provided cost-savings to clients. The pivotal stage in most cases is class certification, where the plaintiffs must prove that their allegations apply to an entire class. Plaintiffs generally rely on statistics and surveys, frequently provided through expert testimony, to make their case. As defense counsel, our primary challenge is to demonstrate that the plaintiffs’ claims are actually disparate and should not  proceed as a class action. One of Littler’s strengths is the ability of our lawyers to confront plaintiffs’ expert and statistical evidence and develop affirmative evidence addressing the elements of Rule 23 or 216(b) certification.

We Can Identify Top Experts

Because experts play such a prominent role in class action litigation, we work with the best experts in their fields who know how to direct their skills to the key issues in a case and attack the methodologies and credibility of the plaintiffs’ experts. Littler has developed strong relationships with leading academicians at major universities and law schools. These experts have outstanding reputations among their academic peers and apply the same creativity and rigor on behalf of Littler’s clients.

Nobel Prize laureate Gary Becker, whose groundbreaking research is the cornerstone of the economics of discrimination, has participated in Littler’s annual Class Action Summit, as have leading economists Professors Kevin Murphy and Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago. Professors Phillip Tetlock and Gregory Mitchell, critics of the “implicit bias” theory of discrimination, have also presented their research and testified on behalf of Littler’s clients. Professor Arthur Miller, one of the authors of Rule 23, has been a keynote speaker at Littler conferences and has assisted Littler lawyers in preparing to argue before the Supreme Court.

With the assistance of these and other experts, Littler has mounted successful Daubert challenges to prominent plaintiffs’ experts and undermined their evidentiary basis for class certification.

eDiscovery

The explosion of electronically stored information in the global workplace has dramatically raised the stakes – and the risks – in litigation. eDiscovery is one of the most expensive elements of class actions, with plaintiffs and defendants facing strict requirements in preserving and producing electronic documents at the risk of costly sanctions. Littler is one of the few law firms with a team of lawyers dedicated exclusively to managing eDiscovery nationwide.

This combination of knowledge, experience and efficiency make Littler’s Class Action Practice Group the team of choice for any employer.