Law 793:  Class Actions, Mass Actions and Related Areas of Complex Litigation

This course will explore large scale, multi-party litigation in its various forms including multi-district litigation and class actions. It will address the reasons for the explosion of multi-party litigation over the past 30 years and the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating dozens, hundreds or thousands of claims into a single proceeding.  We will pay significant attention to landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have materially altered the mass action and class action landscape and the reactions of lower counts to those rulings.  We will also consider recent and emerging areas of class action practice such as data breach and privacy litigation. 

This class should be of particular interest to students who intend to practice in areas involving large-scale commercial litigation.

Sequence and Prerequisites: Civil Procedure. Evidence is helpful but not required.

Evaluation: This course will be evaluated based on a paper and class participation.