Class Actions/Mass Actions/MDLs
Fishman Haygood regularly represents parties in complex litigation matters. Our team’s unparalleled depth and experience in class actions, mass actions, and multi-district litigation (MDL) is a direct reflection of our ability to successfully represent both plaintiffs and defendants.
Partner Lori Mince leads the firm’s class action defense team. Lori has defeated class treatment in cases against Louisiana’s largest grocer, a publicly traded equipment company, and a regional hospital. She also served as lead counsel to GoAuto, an automotive casualty insurer, in a putative class action case that was recently dismissed on summary judgment on behalf of the firm’s client.
We also regularly represent plaintiffs in class cases. Jim Swanson has represented groups of investors in securities cases, including his recent involvement against various banks for aiding and abetting R. Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. This case settled in early 2023 for over $1.6 billion. He has a long history of representing defrauded investors in mass and class cases.
Also on the plaintiff-side, partner Jason Burge recently resolved a hard-fought national class action against Navient that resulted in $236 million in debt relief for a class of debtors whose debts were relieved in bankruptcy.
Notably, in 2010 Fishman Haygood special counsel Steve Herman was appointed by the Court to serve as one of two Liaison and Lead Class Counsel for all businesses, individuals, and local governments involved in the Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil Spill litigation. He is the 2026 The Best Lawyers in America® “Lawyer of the Year” for Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs in New Orleans.
In 2025, Fishman Haygood is ranked Band 1 by Chambers and Partners USA in Litigation: General Commercial and Litigation: Mainly Plaintiffs. The firm is ranked Tier 1 in Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions – Plaintiffs and Defendants in New Orleans by Best Law Firms® for 2026.
*This comment was collected as part of the Best Law Firms® research process.
Representative Experience
Recent:
- Reached a nationwide settlement with Navient Solutions, LLC and Navient Credit Finance Corporation (“Navient”) that resulted in approximately $236 million in debt relief for private student loan borrowers, as well as $44 million in cash compensation. As stated in the class action lawsuit, Navient and its agents refused to recognize the discharges of these private student loans that were (a) to attend non-Title IV schools and programs or (b) made in excess of the cost of attendance, and then continued to collect on the loans even after borrowers obtained bankruptcy discharges.
- Represented a proposed class of over 17,000 investors against five banks in a lawsuit alleging the banks’ aiding and abetting of the $7 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by R. Allen Stanford.
Noteworthy:
- Secured the denial of class certification for a retail grocer with more than forty stores throughout the Gulf South against a class-action suit alleging violations of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.
- Settled a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action against our client for a nominal amount after filing a motion to dismiss on the basis that that the claims were pre-empted by the McCarran-Ferguson Act.
- Defended multiple banks sued in merger challenges.
