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Class Representative in a Securities Fraud Lawsuit

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Class representatives are critical to our cases, they are our cases. They are the ones who identify the case, they are the ones who come to us and tell us what concerns that they have, and ultimately, they’re the ones who get to make the decision about what happens with a case. I’ll give you an example, a typical securities case that we would have. We would have a group of investors come to us and they would say we have had X kind of losses and our understanding is that these were very safe investments and it turns out – and what’s happened in the past ten years is there was mortgage-backed securities in them, that’s the most typical problem in the past decade.

But they would come to us and tell us about that and we would do our investigation. And then we’d give recommendation to them, what kind of case we could bring, what it takes to be a class representative, because it’s not – they’re just not looking out for their interests, they’re also looking out for the interests of everyone else in the country who might have experienced those losses, so they have got a duty that goes just beyond their own concerns.

And then, as we move forward in the litigation, they have to have their deposition taken which can be a very stressful event, they have to be willing to come to trial and go through all of that preparation. We just had a – we were getting ready for a trial last year and I think the rubber this the road right then and the clients realize, oh my gosh, I have to sit in front of a courtroom and have someone be subject to cross-examination. But then ultimately, too, they get to decide if there’s a settlement offer from the defendant, is this is the kind of settlement that seems reasonable to me but also to the other people. So they’re a critical role and it’s just a privilege to get to work with them on our cases.

Minneapolis mass tort and complex litigation attorney Carolyn Anderson describes the role of a class representative in securities fraud lawsuit.

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