Current proposal isn’t enough to stem mushrooming MDLs

For the Defense

By Patrick Eckler

Patrick Eckler is a partner at Freeman, Mathis, & Gary LLP representing defendants in civil matters. He is secretary/treasurer of the Illinois Defense Counsel and co-host of the Podium and Panel podcast. The views expressed here are solely his own.

Posted April 18, 2024 11:17 AM

Assigned a multidistrict litigation (MDL) that grew from a couple of dozen cases to nearly a thousand, and observing cases that were not properly investigated or attended to by counsel, a judge in the Middle District with Georgia expressed a famous frustration with a process that has only gotten worse in the eight years since.“The MDL presently being managed by the undersigned began with twenty-two cases. Due to subsequent tag along transfers, it exploded to more than 850 cases, which explosion appears to have been fueled, …

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