The Plaintiffs’ Attorney’s Role in Class Action and Derivative Litigation: Economic Analysis and Recommendations for Reform
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Description
Over the past decade a number of scholars, including most prominently Professor John Coffee, have recognized that the single most salient characteristic of class and derivative litigation is the existence of “entrepreneurial” plaintiff’s attorneys. Because these attorneys are not subject to monitoring by their putative clients, they operate largely according to their own self-interest, subject only to whatever constraints might be imposed by bar discipline, judicial oversight, and their own sense of ethics and fiduciary responsibilities. In this section we begin by describing the economic rationale for class action and shareholder’s derivative lawsuits. We then discuss the role of the entrepreneurial attorney in such lawsuits by placing it in the context of the economic theory of agency, and by contrasting it with the role of the attorney in standard litigation in which the client exercises a substantial degree of influence over the attorney’s action.
Source Publication
Corporate Law Anthology
Source Editors/Authors
Franklin A. Gevurtz
Publication Date
1997
Recommended Citation
Macey, Jonathan R. and Miller, Geoffrey P., "The Plaintiffs’ Attorney’s Role in Class Action and Derivative Litigation: Economic Analysis and Recommendations for Reform" (1997). Faculty Chapters. 2038.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2038
