IN BRIEF
Clockwise from top left, Myriam Gilles, Cardozo School of Law; Laura Hines, KU Law; Suzette Malveaux, Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Adam Zimmerman, Loyola Law School; Deborah Hensler, Stanford Law School; and Robert Bone, University of Texas School of Law.
THE MODERN CLASS ACTION 50 years later, legal scholars explore evolution of aggregate litigation FIFTY YEARS AGO, THE MODERN class action lawsuit was born. When the U.S. Supreme Court amended Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1966, it radically transformed the way plaintiffs could sue on behalf of a group. Half a century later, legal scholars gathered in Lawrence to discuss the changing effects of the guidelines. The 2016 Kansas Law Review Symposium, “50th Anniversary Perspectives on the Modern Class Action,” took place Oct. 14 at KU Law, with support from KU’s Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy. Speakers discussed the ascertainability of class members, post-Comcast heightened scrutiny of class damage models, dual certification of money damages and injunctive class actions, application of the
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cy-pres doctrine to class actions and the expansion of class actions globally. “Class actions involve high-stakes litigation, potentially millions of plaintiffs, and important consumer and civil rights,” said Laura Hines, a KU Law professor who studies aggregate litigation. “The symposium brought together nationally prominent class action scholars, judges and attorneys from both sides of the bar to discuss recent Supreme Court cases, emerging trends and the global expansion of class actions.” Speakers included Myriam Gilles, Cardozo School of Law; Suzette Malveaux, Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; Robert Bone, University of Texas School of Law; Laura Hines, University of Kansas School of Law; Deborah Hensler, Stanford Law
School; and Adam Zimmerman, Loyola Law School. A judges’ panel featured Judge Robert Dow of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Judge John Lungstrum, L’70, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, and Judge Laura Denvir Stith of the Missouri Supreme Court. A practitioners’ panel featured Eric Barton, L’93, of Wagstaff & Cartmell; Molly Carella, L’04, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon; Robert Coykendall, L’79, of Morris Laing; Rex Sharp of Rex A. Sharp PA; Holly Pauling Smith, L’99, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon; Victoria Smith of Stinson Leonard Street; and Brad Wilders of Stueve Siegel Hanson. Scholarship associated with the symposium will be published in a spring 2017 issue of the Kansas Law Review.