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David Keyko is a partner in the law firm's Litigation practice and is located in the New York office. His practice has focused on major, complex litigation, often involving multiple parties. He has handled cases involving allegations of securities or other types of fraud, antitrust violations, ethics issues and trusts and estates issues across the country, often involving insurance coverage issues. He has conducted internal investigations and represented clients responding to government probes. He has also served as an expert witness in connection with legal malpractice litigation. Among the prominent cases Mr. Keyko has handled was the representation of a defendant in a $1.4 billion antitrust lawsuit.
Mr. Keyko was named the "New York City Best Lawyers Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law Lawyer of the Year" for 2012, 2017 and 2019. He has lectured and written widely on securities, antitrust, legal ethics and general litigation topics, and chairs PLI's programs on federal pretrial practice and ethics for corporate lawyers. He is a former columnist for the New York Law Journal and has written several dozen articles on litigation and ethics issues for such publications as the National Law Journal.
Mr. Keyko has undertaken a variety of pro bono projects, including representing for over 20 years a death row inmate in Alabama asserting that the inmate is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted, serving as Chair of the Board of Mobilization for Justice Legal Services, Inc., and serving two terms as a member of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the First Department. He was Chairman of the Professional Responsibility Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He chaired the ad hoc committee of the Association that commented on proposed SEC regulations under Section 307 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. He is currently the chair of the Association's Legal Referral Service Committee and is a member of the ABA Legal Referral and Information Service Committee.
Mr. Keyko is the Chief Ethics Counsel of Pillsbury and is a member of its Sarbanes-Oxley Committee, Opinions Committee and Professional Responsibility Committee. He is an adjunct professor at the Fordham University School of Law where he teaches legal ethics.
Devi M. Rao is a litigator and a partner in the Appellate and Supreme Court; Content, Media, and Entertainment; and Government Controversies and Public Policy Litigation practice groups. She represents businesses and government entities in complex commercial litigation and civil, constitutional, and regulatory matters.
Ms. Rao’s practice spans a diverse range of substantive areas in a wide variety of industries including media, communications, automotive, and education. In particular, she has experience handling complex commercial litigation and civil and regulatory matters facing copyright owners in the music and video game industries, representing clients in a wide range of cases in district court, before courts of appeals, and before the Copyright Royalty Board.
In addition, Ms. Rao has significant experience with consumer class actions, both at the trial court and appellate levels. She has also managed document reviews and data analyses in response to civil discovery as well as high-profile DOJ, congressional, and regulatory subpoenas. Ms. Rao has extensive experience with compliance and enforcement issues surrounding Title IX and its intersection with due process protections, including litigating due process issues in student disciplinary proceedings on behalf of universities, leading training presentations for Title IX compliance officers, and working with schools to ensure their sexual assault and harassment policies and procedures are Title IX compliant.
Ms. Rao maintains an active pro bono practice, ranging from representing clients in investigations before Congress to authoring amicus briefs before Courts of Appeals, for clients such as the American Medical Association and the National Congress of American Indians.
Ms. Rao received her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. She received her J.D. in 2010 from Columbia University School of Law, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. Prior to joining Jenner & Block, Ms. Rao clerked for Judge M. Margaret McKeown of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court. Ms Rao previously worked as a Skadden Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center.
Georgene Vairo teaches and writes in the areas of mass tort litigation, class actions, international dispute resolution, federal practice and jurisdiction. She has written Rule 11 Sanctions and the chapters on removal jurisdiction, venue, and multidistrict litigation in Moore’s Federal Practice. In addition to dozens of articles about federal practice and procedure, including most recently Is the Class Action Really Dead? Is that Good or Bad for Class Members?, 64 Emory L.J. 477 (2014); Lessons Learned by the Reporter: Is Disaggregation the Answer to the Asbestos Mess?, 88 Tulane L. Rev. 1039 (2014) ; and What Goes Around, Comes Around; From the Rector of Barkway to Knowles, 32 Univ. Texas Rev. of Litig. 721 (2013), she has published The Complete CAFA: Analysis and Developments Under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (LEXIS 2011), and The Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011: Analysis and Case Law Developments (LEXIS 2013).
Professor Vairo served on the Board of Trustees of the Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust, and as its Chairperson. As Chair, she worked to develop systems for distributing over $3 Billion dollars to over 200,000 claimants. She serves on the editorial board of Moore's Federal Practice, and is the author of two volumes of the Treatise. She also is a member of the Rand Corporation’s Institute for Civil Justice Board of Overseers, and is a member of the American Law Institute. In 2013, she was appointed Reporter to the ABA TIPS Task Force on Asbestos Litigation. She has participated in numerous academic conferences, has lectured widely to the bench and bar at numerous programs of various national and local associations and institutes, and has served as an expert in complex civil litigation cases.
Professor Vairo received her B.A. from Sweet Briar College in Economics, and an M.Ed., with Distinction, in Social Studies from the University of Virginia. She graduated first in her class from Fordham University School of Law. She then served as a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph M. McLaughlin, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (then U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York); practiced antitrust law with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom; and taught at Fordham University School of Law, where she also served for 8 years as Associate Dean. She joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 1995.
Professor Vairo serves as the Vice Chair of and on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Sweet Briar College, and as Vice President and on the Executive Committee of the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; she has won national and California bicycle road race and criterion championships; loves sailing, trail running, her golden retrievers, and growing vegetables when it rains in California.
Hon. Michael H. Dolinger recently joined JAMS as a panelist in its New York City office. He had previously served for more than thirty-one years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York (1984-2015). During that time he conducted numerous trials, both bench and jury; supervised pretrial proceedings, including discovery and motions, in several thousand cases; and handled settlement efforts in an equivalent number of cases. Prior to his service on the bench, Mr. Dolinger was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District, where he worked in the Civil Division, including time spent as Deputy Chief of Appeals and Deputy Chief of the Civil Division. (1976-84). Before his tenure in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he was an associate at the law firm then known as Nickerson, Kramer, Lowenstein, Nessen, Kamin & Soll. (1973-76).
Mr. Dolinger earned his law degree at Columbia Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review. (1969-72). He subsequently undertook a clerkship with the Hon. Wilfred Feinberg, Circuit Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (1972-73).
James C. Shah is a partner of Shepherd, Finkelman, Miller & Shah, LLP and focuses his practice on the prosecution of complex class and commercial litigation. A significant portion his practice during the past 18 years has related to consumer class actions, including automotive defect cases. James is also actively involved in litigating ERISA, wage and hour, and qui tam matters. In addition to contingent matters, he also represents a significant number of commercial clients in hourly litigation, including many international companies. James earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Oregon (1990) and a law degree from Temple University School of Law (1994). James began his career as a litigator in Philadelphia with Pelino & Lentz, P.C. In April 2000, he joined with Scott Shepherd and began building a firm, which now has more than 20 attorneys and offices in six states.
During the past several years, James has been actively involved in initiating and litigating cases against manufacturers who placed engines with faulty emissions technology into the marketplace. He served as co-lead class counsel in a vigorously contested MDL against Caterpillar, Inc, which resulted in a common fund settlement of $60 million. (In re: Caterpillar, Inc., C13 and C15 Engine Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2540 (D.N.J.) (Hon. Chief Judge Jerome B. Simandle).) James also served as co-lead counsel in an action against Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America, Inc., involving claims that the diesel engines on approximately 10,000 trucks were equipped with defective emissions control technology. (
Q+Food v. Mitsubishi Fuso Truck of America, Inc. (D.N.J.), 3:14-cv-06046 (Hon. Douglas E. Arpert).) That action resulted in a $17.5 million common fund settlement. In addition, James is co-lead plaintiff’s counsel in Rodman v. Safeway Inc., (N.D. Ca.), 3:11-cv-03003 (Hon. Jon S. Tigar), where plaintiff obtained certification of nationwide class of individuals who asserted that they had been overcharged for groceries delivered to their homes and also obtained summary judgment on liability, as well as a $43 million damages judgment, which was recently upheld by the Ninth Circuit.
James is a member of the American Association for Justice, Public Justice and the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association. In addition, he is an active member of IAG International (Integrated Advisory Group), http://www.iaginternational.org, a consortium of independent law, fiduciary trust and accounting firms in Asia, Canada, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, South America and the United States.
Joel S. Feldman is a senior counsel at Sidley Austin’s Chicago office.
He has served as lead defense counsel in over 150 financial services class actions venued in over 30 federal and state courts throughout the U.S., covering ERISA benefit plans, annuities, life insurance, ERISA fee class actions, property and casualty insurance, and actuarial issues associated with financial services products.
Joel has won, through motion practice, a series of precedent setting class actions wherein many other similarly situated defendants had settled, often for large sums of money. Most recently he has won a series of dismissals with prejudice in ERISA fee cases. These include dismissals with prejudice of an ERISA stable value class action (Barchok v. Galliard et al, D. R.I.; on appeal), an excessive fee ERISA class action (McCaffree v. Principal Life Ins. Co., 8th Cir.) and an ERISA class action alleging that a plan’s 401(k) fund “menu” included too many actively managed funds with excessive fees (Rosen v. Prudential, D. Conn.).
Joel has also served as lead counsel in winning the only complete class certification denial (Rowe v. Bankers, N.D. Ill.) and only complete summary judgment victory (Kennedy v. Jackson National, N.D. Cal.) amid the myriad of senior citizen annuity class actions, wherein many other defendants had settled. He has also served as lead counsel in the only ERISA revenue sharing class actions where courts denied class certification (Ruppert v. Principal, S.D. Iowa) and granted summary judgment (Leimkuehler v. American United Life, S.D. Ind.). He served as lead counsel in the first summary judgment victory among the many retained asset class actions (Rabin v. MONY, S.D. N.Y.), and won the denial of class certification in a cost of insurance class action, wherein numerous other defendants in similar class actions had settled (Gregurek v. United of Omaha, C.D. Cal.). Joel also served as lead counsel in In re Industrial Life Insurance Litigation, MDL No. 1371 (E.D. La.), where in 2006 the court denied class certification after almost all other defendants had settled. In addition to motion practice victories, Joel successfully tried a securities fraud class action to a jury verdict, named by the National Law Journal as one of the top ten trials of the year.
Joel co-chaired for ten years the PLI National Class Action Conference in New York. He is the past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Federal Civil Procedure Committee, past chair of the American Bar Association Securities Litigation Subcommittee on Secondary Liability, and past editor-in-chief of Securities News, the official ABA publication for the Securities Law Committee.
In 2017, Joel was named a BTI “Client Service All-Star.” He is also recommended in Insurance: Advice to Insurers and ERISA litigation in The Legal 500 US 2014–2017, and has been recognized as a “Best Lawyer” in the 2014–2017 editions of The Best Lawyers in America in Insurance Law.
Lauren McGeever is a New York based director for Epiq Class Action and Mass Tort Solutions for both US and UK based clients. Lauren is responsible for advising on and developing customized solutions for clients’ unique project demands. She provides consultative advice for all aspects of class action administration, from notice planning and implementation through disbursements.
CASE EXPERIENCE
In addition to many US class actions settlements over the last 15 years, Lauren also consulted on the Merricks v MasterCard collective action filed with Competition Appeals Tribunal in the United Kingdom as well as the representative action, Lloyd v Google, brought before the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in England, pursuant to the Civil Procedure Rules rule 19.6. As a former paralegal at class action and mass tort firms, Lauren assisted litigation efforts on cases like the New York Diet Drug Litigation (Fen-Phen), and managed the administration of settlements in securities and consumer class actions and regulatory disbursement funds such as the SEC v Bank of America Fair Fund.
Cameron R. Azari, Esq., is a vice president of Epiq and the director of Hilsoft Notifications. Mr. Azari has more than 16 years of experience in the design and implementation of legal notification and claims administration programs. He and his staff are nationally recognized specialists in the creation of notification campaigns in compliance with Fed R. Civ. P. 23(c)(2) (d)(2) and (e) and similar state class action statutes.
Case Experience
Mr. Azari has been responsible for hundreds of legal notice and advertising programs. He’s an expert at providing consultative guidance with respect to all aspects of the class action settlement process from notice plan implementation through disbursements. Recent cases where Mr. Azari has been certified by the Court as a notice expert and filed an expert opinion and/or testified are listed below.
Education
Mr. Azari holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Willamette University and a Juris Doctor from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College.
Admitted to Practice
Mr. Azari is an active member of the Oregon State Bar.
Speaking Expertise
Mr. Azari has shared his expertise in the following notable speeches and articles.
Publications
Mr. Azari has published many articles about class action noticing requirements, including:
Public Justice nominated Ms. Johnson and the rest of the Neurontin trial teams for Trial Lawyer of the Year.
Kristen A. Johnson is a partner in Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP’s Boston office. She represents plaintiffs in antitrust, RICO, and mass tort cases involving the pharmaceutical industry.
Ms. Johnson serves as court-appointed alternate lead counsel in the In re New England Compounding Pharmacy Litigation Multidistrict Litigation (D. Mass., MDL 2419, Zobel J., Saylor, J., Boal, M.J.). She has overseen litigation brought by a dozen plaintiffs’ groups against over two dozen defendants. During the nascent stages of the MDL, Ms. Johnson was personally appointed liaison counsel to speak for the at least 751 victims who contracted fungal meningitis or suffered other serious health problems as a result of receiving contaminated products produced by NECC. Through a Chapter 11 Plan of reorganization and later settlements, the litigation created a pot of over $200 million for the benefit of tort victims (before fees and expenses).
In In re Celebrex (Celecoxib) Antitrust Litigation (E.D.V.A., 14-cv-00361, Allen, J., Miller, M.J.), the Court appointed the firm lead counsel; Ms. Johnson managed day-to-day responsibilities for the direct purchaser class actions. Ms. Johnson led the briefing team responsible for both an affirmative motion for partial summary judgment and opposing Pfizer’s motion for summary judgment; she deposed several key fact witnesses; she worked with the key patent experts; and she was prepared to present fact and expert witnesses at trial. The case settled on the eve of trial for $94 million (pending final approval).
Ms. Johnson was one of four attorneys who presented or cross-examined witnesses for the plaintiffs during the 2014 Nexium antitrust trial (In re Nexium (Esomeprazole Magnesium) Antitrust Litigation, D. Mass., MDL No. 2409, Young, J.). In 2009, Ms. Johnson was a member of the trial team responsible for the $142 million RICO verdict against Pfizer for fraudulently marketing the drug Neurontin to treat off-label condition (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, et al v. Pfizer, Inc., et al, D. Mass., 04-cv-10739, Saris, J.).
Ms. Johnson was part of the team of attorneys that prepared the In re Flonase Antitrust Litigation case for trial. Ms. Johnson worked closely with the former Commissioner of the FDA and presented him during an evidentiary hearing and a Daubert hearing. Ms. Johnson cross-examined the Defendant’s FDA expert. Ms. Johnson also played a major role in the summary judgment briefing. In June, 2013, the case settled for $150 million on behalf of the direct purchaser class.
Ms. Johnson was instrumental in the $350 million settlement on behalf of a class of third party payers in the Neurontin litigation, as well as the Prograf ($98 million), and other antitrust settlements.
In 2014, the National Law Journal honored Ms. Johnson as one of the 40 lawyers under 40 in Boston and as a rising star. In 2011, Public Justice nominated Ms. Johnson and the rest of her trial team for Trial Lawyer of the Year for their work securing a $142 million RICO verdict against Pfizer for fraudulently marketing the drug Neurontin.
Ms. Johnson graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College and earned her J.D. at Boston College Law School. Ms. Johnson is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the District of Massachusetts, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First, Second, and Third Circuits. She is a member of the American Association for Justice and Public Justice’s Class Action Preservation Project Committee.
Education
Bar Admissions
Court Admissions
Howard S. Suskin is a partner in Jenner & Block’s Litigation Department and Co-Chair of the firm’s Securities Litigation Practice and its Class Action Practice. Mr. Suskin has substantial first-chair experience representing individuals and business entities in civil and criminal securities matters, including class actions alleging securities fraud and misrepresentation claims, derivative actions claiming breach of fiduciary duty, contests for corporate control, insider trading investigations and broker-dealer issues. He serves as an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, and for self-regulatory organizations including the Chicago Board Options Exchange, FINRA and the National Futures Association. Mr. Suskin is an active member of the ABA Securities Law Committee, including serving as Co-Chair of the Class and Derivative Actions Subcommittee. Mr. Suskin currently serves as General Counsel for the Chicago Bar Association (CBA), and served previously as a member of the CBA’s Board of Managers and as Chairman of the CBA’s Class Action Committee, Bench & Bar Committee, Financial & Investment Services Committee and Securities Law Committee. Mr. Suskin is a member of the Advisory Board of Board IQ, a Financial Times publication, and The Deal, has served as a member of the Securities Editorial Advisory Board of Law360, and serves on the faculty of Practising Law Institute. He has lectured extensively and has published numerous treatises and articles on issues relating to arbitrations, class actions and securities law, including serving as editor and co-author of the West Publishing Illinois Civil Litigation Guide, Moore’s Federal Civil Motion Practice and Pretrial Civil Litigation, the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education Treatise on Class Actions, and the ABA’s Annual Survey of State Class Action Litigation. Members of the Leading Lawyers Network have consistently recognized Mr. Suskin’s work in several areas including class actions, commercial litigation, alternative dispute resolution, and securities and venture financing law. He has been named one of the “Best Lawyers in America” for commercial litigation, and has been recognized eight times as a “Top 100 Illinois Super Lawyer.” Mr. Suskin graduated from Northwestern University with distinction, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and obtained his J.D. degree with honors from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a member of the Michigan Law Review.
Jayne Arnold Goldstein joined Shepherd Finkelman Miller & Shah LLP in January 2017 in the Firm's Ft. Lauderdale, Florida office. She brings to SFMS her expertise in representing individuals, businesses, institutional investors and labor organizations in a variety of complex commercial litigation, including violations of federal and state antitrust and securities laws and unfair and deceptive trade practices. Ms. Goldstein was lead counsel in In re Sara Lee Securities Litigation, and has played a principal role in numerous other securities class actions that resulted in recoveries of over $100 million. She is currently serving as co-lead counsel for indirect purchasers in In re Actos Antitrust Litigation, as well as serving on the executive committee of four other pay for delay pharmaceutical antitrust cases. She is a member of the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee in In re Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation. Ms. Goldstein was co-lead counsel for indirect purchasers and served as a member of the trial team in In re Nexium Antitrust Litigation, the first reverse payment case to go to trial after the United States Supreme Court's decision in F.T.C. v. Actavis, Inc. In addition, Ms. Goldstein served on the discovery team in In re OSB Antitrust Litigation (E.D. Pa.) and was allocation counsel in McDonough v. Toys "R" Us, Inc. et al. (E.D. Pa). Ms. Goldstein has served as class counsel in a wide variety of consumer class litigation, including Gemelas v The Dannon Company, which resulted in the biggest settlement ever against a food company; Weiner v. Beiersdorf North America Inc. and Beiersdorf, Inc. (D. Conn.) (co-lead); Messick v. Applica Consumer Products, Inc. (S.D. Fla.) (co-lead); and Leiner v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products, Inc. (N.D. Ill.) (co-lead).
Ms. Goldstein began her legal career, in 1986, with a wide-ranging general practice firm in Philadelphia. In 2000, she was a founding shareholder of Mager & White, P.C. and opened its Florida office, where she concentrated her practice on securities, consumer and antitrust litigation. In 2002, the firm became Mager White & Goldstein, LLP. In 2005, Ms. Goldstein was a founding partner of Mager & Goldstein LLP. Most recently, she was a partner at Pomerantz LLP.
Ms. Goldstein, a registered nurse, received her law degree from Temple University School of Law in 1986 and her Bachelor of Science (highest honors) from Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science.
Ms. Goldstein is a member the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association and the Illinois Public Pension Fund Association. Ms. Goldstein is a contributor to a book published by the American Bar Association, The Road to Independence: 101 Women's Journeys to Starting Their Own Law Firms. She resides in Delray Beach, Florida with her family. She is active in community affairs and charitable work in Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Since 2010, Ms. Goldstein served as co-chair of P.L.I.'s Class Action Litigation Strategies Annual Conference held in New York. In January 2017 Ms. Goldstein chaired P.L.I.'s new program Women Lawyers in Leadership, a program she developed. Ms. Goldstein has been a frequent speaker at Public Pension Fund Conferences having recently appeared on Panels at the Florida Public Pension Trustees' Association and Illinois Public Pension Fund Association.
She is admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of the United States, the State of Florida, as well as in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Illinois and numerous federal courts, including the United States District Courts for the Southern, Northern and Middle Districts of Florida, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Northern District of Illinois, the United States Courts of Appeal for the First, Second, Third, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits. In addition to these courts and jurisdictions, Ms. Goldstein has worked on cases with local and co-counsel throughout the country and worldwide.