Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti was originally founded in 1962. For over 40 years, the firm has specialized in representing investors in securities fraud cases. During that time, the firm has helped recover billions of dollars for defrauded shareholders. In the past three years alone, the firm served as Lead Counsel on behalf of Taft-Hartley Pension Fund Lead Plaintiffs in the Nicor, Westar, SPX Corp., and PNC Financial cases, recovering over $126 Million. The firm also represented an additional named plaintiff and certified class representative in the WorldCom securities class action wherein a record $6.13 billion was recovered. This is one of the largest securities fraud settlements of all time.
Since the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA) -- which legislation sought to increase the role of institutional investors in securities fraud litigation -- the firm has established itself as a leading representative of Taft-Hartley pension and benefit funds in this area of the law. Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti has served as counsel to dozens of such funds in federal securities fraud cases throughout the country over the past several years. We represented the very first Taft-Hartley fund to ever seek Lead Plaintiff status in a federal securities fraud class action case and the very first Taft-Hartley fund to ever be certified by a federal court as a Class Representative in such a case.
Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti is a true boutique law firm; we exclusively handle securities fraud and derivative cases. Our attorneys are highly trained, with an average of over 21 years of experience in commercial litigation and securities class action work. And because we are more streamlined than some other firms in the field, we have the ability to be more selective in the cases we bring. That is why our average recovery as a percentage of damages is approximately thirty three percent (33%), more than 10 times greater than some of the larger, more litigious firms in the field.1
Our unique ability to maximize damage recoveries was highlighted by Federal District Judge McMahon of Manhattan in Maley v. Del Global Corp., 00-CV-8495 (S.D.N.Y), a case in which Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti acted as Sole Lead Counsel. There Judge McMahon commended the firm for "going the extra mile" in obtaining a settlement that represented approximately 41 percent of the maximum recoverable damages incurred by the class, observing: "Through (Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti's) efforts, after intensive investigation, concentrated litigation and extensive arm's-length bargaining, and without the benefit of any governmental agency's investigation, Class Counsel have secured a settlement fund which confers an excellent benefit to the Class. . . I can't ever remember having participated as a lawyer or a judge in a settlement of a securities fraud class action that yielded in excess of a forty percent rate of recovery."
The Wall Street Journal has also highlighted the firm's distinctive success rate. In an April 25, 2002 article, the Journal cited two of our cases wherein we served as Sole Lead Counsel as being among the largest recoveries as a percentage of damages to date (Anadigics, 44% and Versatility, 30%).
Over the years, SSLL has also litigated important and precedent-setting legal issues. For example, in Singer v. Nicor Corp. (Nicor Corp. Sec. Litig.), where SSLL was Sole Lead Counsel, the firm successfully argued that the stay of discovery under the PSLRA should be lifted in order to obtain important documentation that might well have been lost in the interim. And recently, in In re Dynex Capital Inc. Sec. Litig. and Teamsters Local 445 Freight Division Pension Fund v. Bombardier, Inc., where SSLL was again acting as Sole Lead Counsel, the courts permitted an expansive use of the class action device in the representation of investors in public offerings. In both cases, each court, in separate decisions, recognized the right of purchasers of securities on one offering to represent purchasers on a separate offering where it was alleged that the offerings were subject to the same alleged corporate misconduct by the same defendants.
1This is based on a comparison of estimated recoverable damages versus the recovery amount for Schoengold Sporn Laitman & Lometti's Post-PSLRA cases, on the one hand, as compared to the results of a study conducted by Cornerstone Research entitled Post-Reform Act Securities Lawsuits; Settlements Reported Through Deccember 2003, on the other. The latter uses a different methodology for computing estimated damages than the methodology we employ.
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