The Problem of Multi-District Litigation: Symposium at Tulane

Tulane Law Review is putting together a symposium entitled The Problem of Multi-District Litigation.  Here is the blurb from the Tulane Law Review’s website:

The Tulane Law Review is holding the first national symposium onmultidistrict litigation this upcoming February 15th and 16th, 2008. We are pleased that a number of speakers have agreed to join us,specifically Judge John Heyburn, the Chairman of the United StatesJudicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and Judge Kathryn Vratil,also a member of the Panel.  The symposium will feature several otherdistinguished federal and state judges who have handled MDL litigation,such as Judges Eldon Fallon (E.D. La.), Stanwood Duval (E.D. La.),Lee Rosenthal (S.D. Tex.), Sarah Vance (E.D. La.), Mark Davidson(Texas), and Carol Higbee (New Jersey); a number of highly respectedacademics, such as Profs. Francis McGovern, Richard Marcus, EdwardSherman, Alexandra Lahav, and Robin Effron; and distinguished attorneysfrom both plaintiffs’ and defendants’ sides, including RichardArsenault, Dawn Barrios, Judy Barrasso, Mark Herrmann, Russ Herman,Phillip Whitman, and Richard Scruggs.  The symposium will cover a widerange of issues across the national landscape of multidistrictlitigation, from the actual workings of the United States JudicialPanel and the selection of the transferee court, to the questions ofcoordination between simultaneous MDLs in both state and federalcourts, the formation of ad hoc districtwide MDLs, the use ofbellwether trials and other settlement devices, attorney strategies inmultidistrict litigation, and the role of MDL in the solution to theproblems of complex litigation.

ADL