Corporate Litigation, Governance, and the Role of Law Firms

Corporate Litigation, Governance, and the Role of Law Firms

Allen Ferrell, Alberto Manconi, Ekaterina Neretina, William Powley, Luc Renneboog

Series number :

Serial Number: 
607/2021

Date posted :

October 05 2021

Last revised :

October 05 2021
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • corporate litigation • 
  • Corporate governance • 
  • litigation insurance • 
  • securities litigation

Corporations pay out large settlements to their shareholders and other plaintiffs as compensation for corporate governance failures. Hired to achieve and improve settlements, plaintiff law firms can play a central role in litigation outcomes. We provide first systematic evidence of their performance.

In our novel comprehensive dataset, top plaintiff law firms (“stars”) capture 48% larger settlements. Defendant corporations’ litigation insurance coverage is also 39% larger, suggesting assortative matching of stars with lawsuits that have ex-ante large expected payoffs. Stars’ visibility and information advantage vis-à-vis less sophisticated plaintiffs help sustain their market share.

Authors

Real name:
Alberto Manconi
Real name:
Ekaterina Neretina
Real name:
William Powley