Corporate Counsel’s Guide to Class Action Litigation

Class action litigation continues to expand in both number of filings and monetary exposure, with settlement numbers breaking the $40 billion mark for the fourth year in a row in 2025. Courts are granting motions for class certification at a high rate – approximately 68% – across substantive areas of class action litigation. Corporate defendants continue to litigate in high-volume areas including wage & hour, antitrust, data breach, consumer fraud, products liability, as well as face complex claims in evolving areas, such as artificial intelligence, digital assets and blockchain, and emerging privacy theories. This program explores the significant developments across the class action landscape over the past 12 months and best practices for risk mitigation.
 
Join experienced class action defense lawyer Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. in this presentation for a detailed walkthrough of the current class action outlook, including the key rulings, trends, and strategies that corporate counsel should have in their toolkit.
 
Agenda:

• Analyzing Filing, Certification, And Settlement Trends
• Key U.S. Supreme Court Rulings Shaping The Landscape
• The Evolution Of The Arbitration Defense
• Evolving Areas Of Class Action Litigation

 
Presenter Bio

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. is a Chambers-recognized class action defense litigator, an eight-time Law 360 Employment Law MVP, nine-time recipient of BTI Consulting Group’s distinguished Client Service All-Star Award, and a 2021 Legal 500 Hall of Fame inductee.
 
Jerry is a partner at Duane Morris LLP, where he chairs the firm’s Class Action Defense Team. Among his various cases, Jerry successfully defended the largest EEOC pattern or practice lawsuit ever prosecuted in the history of the Commission, the largest age discrimination collective action ever brought in Illinois, the first sexual harassment class action brought by a State Attorney General in the United States, and the largest wage & hour class actions ever litigated in Florida, Illinois, and New York. A graduate of Washington & Lee University and the Northwestern University School of Law, where he has served as an adjunct professor for 35 years, Jerry is based out of Duane Morris’ Chicago and New York offices. The author of eight books on the law, Jerry is often consulted by major news organizations for his views on significant court rulings and legal issues. He has served as a legal commentator on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR), MSNBC, CNBC, and USA Talk Radio, and his comments have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Insurance, USA Today, Fortune, and Forbes. In 2023, Business Today included Jerry in its rankings of the Top 8 Most Influential Labor & Employment Lawyers in the United States. Further, Chambers selected him as one of the leading class action defense lawyers in its 2006 to 2025 rankings of U.S. lawyers. In its Global rankings, Chambers stated that “Maatman is absolutely phenomenal,” and is “one of the top class action minds in the country.