For too long, coverage of class action litigation has understated or ignored completely the critical role that class actions have played in protecting consumer safety, advancing civil rights, protecting the integrity of the market, and distributing justice. The goal of this conference is to present a series of panels focusing on the historic value of class actions, their contemporary application, as well as the threats and opportunities facing the class action system today and in the future.

The conference, cosponsored with the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and Public Justice, will bring together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and law students to engage in a day-long, interactive set of conversations about class actions and the issues that swirl around this controversial and rapidly changing legal arena. Ken Feinberg, founder of The Feinberg Group LLP and the former Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, will give the keynote address.

5 transitional and non-transitional New York MCLE credits in the Areas of Professional Practice category.

Course Credit for Other MCLE States
Many states with MCLE requirements will grant continuing legal education credits for programs provided by Cardozo or other New York-accredited providers. If you are admitted to practice in a MCLE state, please contact the CLE administrator for that state to determine whether it will award credit for a particular program.

Please RSVP to classactionconference@gmail.com. 

Program and Participants (view event pdf)

9 am--Opening Remarks by Dean David Rudenstine, Cardozo School of Law
Introductions by Steven Fineman, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein

9:20 Keynote Speaker 
Kenneth Feinberg, founder, The Feinberg Group LLP and former Special Master,  9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.

10:30 am --The Historical Significance of Class Actions 
Elizabeth Cabraser, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
Sean Coffey, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman LLP
Geoffrey Miller, New York University Law School
Richard Nagareda, Vanderbilt Law School
Moderator: Lucas Guttentag, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.

12:00 pm -- Lunch

1:00 pm -- Challenges Facing Contemporary Class Actions 
John Beisner, O'Melveny & Myers, Washington, D.C.
Leslie Bailey, Public Justice
Myriam Gilles, Cardozo  School of Law
Michael Hausfeld, Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll P.L.L.C.
Samuel Issacharoff, New York University Law School
Moderator: Anthony Sebok, Cardozo School of Law

2:30 pm -- Moving Forward:  Class Actions in the Future and Around the Globe 
Paul Bland, Public Justice
Deborah Hensler, Stanford Law School
Bill Lann Lee, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C.  
Catherine Lhamon, American Civil Liberties Union
Victor Schwartz, Shook Hardy & Bacon
Moderator:  Robert Peck, Center for Constitutional Litigation

4pm -- Reception 

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) is one of the nation's leading progressive legal organizations. Founded in 2001, ACS is a rapidly growing network of lawyers, law students, scholars, judges, policymakers and other concerned individuals. The organization's mission is to ensure that fundamental principles of human dignity, individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, and access to justice enjoy their rightful, central place in American law. For more information about ACS, which has established student chapters at 158 law schools, including Cardozo, and lawyer chapters in over 25 cities, please visit http://www.acslaw.org/.
     
Public Justice (formerly Trial Lawyers for Public Justice) is America’s public interest law firm.  Dedicated to using trial lawyers’ and other attorneys’ skills and resources to advance the public good, Public Justice is supported by – and can call on – a nationwide network of more than 3,000 of the nation’s top lawyers. It brings precedent-setting and socially significant individual and class action litigation to protect consumers’ rights, workers’ rights, civil rights and liberties, public health and safety, the environment, and access to the courts. Its Class Action Preservation Project challenges efforts to eliminate, unduly limit, and abuse class actions. For more information on how to join in or support the organization’s work, please visit http://www.publicjustice.net/