Edelson Pitches ‘Better Way’ To Pick Leads In Privacy Suits

Law 360 (April 19, 2024) — Plaintiffs in proposed privacy class actions should be given more say in who’s picked as class counsel, in order to crack down on the “anemic settlements” that have resulted from the ineffective “old way of litigating” these matters, law firm Edelson PC argued in vying for lead counsel in a dispute over a data breach at genetics testing provider 23andMe.

In a motion lodged Thursday in California federal court, attorneys from Edelson contended that the “old way of litigating privacy class actions hasn’t been working” and instead proposed “a better way” of handling these matters that the plaintiffs’ firm claimed would reduce the frequent occurrence of litigants reaching “anemic settlements” that “primarily benefit the lawyers” by focusing on elements such as credit monitoring and cy pres payments rather than on delivering substantive monetary relief to class members. Read more here.