Are you searching for a California or San Diego class action defense attorney?  Defending our clients in a class action lawsuit requires extensive experience, skill, and proven strategies.  The financial and legal risks in these cases can represent not only a substantial financial exposure for your company, but threaten the survival of your business itself.

Important Takeaways about What to Look For in a San Diego Class Action Defense Attorney

• Look for an extensive track record of proven success when you are selecting a California or San Diego class action defense attorney.  This is especially true in matters of employer defense class action lawsuits or PAGA Actions.
• Your class action defense attorney(s) are your primary line of defense in high stakes matters involving your company.  Class action litigation is a complex area of law requiring extensive experience.
• Your class action defense lawyer(s) must not only possess extensive trial skills and subject matter expertise for the type of claim(s) you are facing, but strategic defenses to help prevent the certification of the class while reducing or mitigating potential damages.

You Need a Proven Trial Attorney

One of the most important ingredients to look for in your California or San Diego class action defense attorney is proven trial experience and a track record of successful verdicts and settlements.  There is going to be a substantial amount of discovery in a class action case, and you’ll need a law firm with the capacity and skill to manage large volumes of data and information, as well as the skill to comb through voluminous information to identify key pieces of of the puzzle.

The initial steps usually involve the prevention of class certification.  You can’t have a class action lawsuit if there aren’t numerous plaintiffs who share specific issues and experiences in common, without presenting claims that are too vague, overly broad, or even impossible to ascertain and objectively quantify.  All of these issues provide ample basis for an aggressive, successful defense.

There are numerous legal steps, and each encounter requires not only legal expertise, but the ability to “read the room” and individual behaviors.  You need to know when to ask the question, and when not to.  Voir Dire, the selection of a jury, is one of the most crucial and challenging skills for any trial attorney to develop.  Dan Watkins has almost four decades of proven experience in local, regional, and national cases.  Dan has appeared twice on Good Morning America to discuss his cases of national interest, and how the Watkins Firm was able to win large cases involving substantial amounts of money (as well as the survival of a national brand you would immediately recognize).

Pro-Tip: “There are all kinds of rules and regulations on what they can’t do and what we can’t do in defending it and how we approach that. And every case is different and every settlement and every resolution is different. It’s a different kind of beast. The Judge gets involved. All the attorneys get involved. You have to make sure you’re fair to the people that are part of the class. So it’s very complicated and how you handle it in the beginning and throughout the case is important. You can’t just hire a lawyer to go out there and be really aggressive and expect a great result. All you’re going to end up with is a higher bill and higher risk, and nobody being scared away.

I think that failure to act immediately is the biggest risk. You get a claim, you get a letter, you get a notice and you don’t take action right away. That’s your opportunity to cure, fix and get out of the way of any class action case. The lawyers who are hoping to sue you don’t make any money if you act quickly, but if you delay and push back or ignore them, then they gain bigger rights and more motivation.

PAGA actions are class actions. We do class action defense in many areas, employer defense and PAGA actions, false advertising and unfair competition defense, even organic labeling and Made in the USA types of class actions. What are the best defensive strategies for your unique situation?  That’s where the unique skills of the Watkins Firm really come to the fore.

Everybody knows about class certification. You can’t have a class unless you have like people in a like situation that have suffered the same harm. And a lot of times plaintiff lawyers will try to group everyone together in hopes of getting the judge to certify a class, so that it’s assumed that everyone has suffered the same harm. Customers have different experiences. And most employers don’t treat each employee the same.  I mean, they’re all individually hired and contracted for.  And sometimes the problems that are being alleged are not universal. So we want to fight that right away.  And we also want to do our discovery and find out if everybody in the process wants to really join this class.

If the class action defense attorneys don’t have success preventing the class certification, you’re into the meat of trial and defense clients are facing some sort of serious liability. That’s when we have to come up with strategies for settlement and mediation, and which mediators are knowledgeable in the community, in this kind of law, those who have a pulse understanding what is and is not reasonable when it comes to resolution options. Of course the plaintiff’s lawyers are going to want as much as possible, but what’s fair? What’s reasonable?  What can our clients can afford, and what kind of curing measures we can put forward? And knowing that the actual judges that we have, and how they’ve ruled in the past all to advise our clients on what’s the best way through or out of this. And that’s the worst case scenario. When we’re sitting there talking about giving away our clients’ money, for honest mistakes, that can be punitive in nature. That’s the hardest. And that’s the worst case scenario. And we try our hardest not to get to that point.

The best case scenario is the client gets that notice, that little letter in the mail, contacts us, we check everything out. And if there’s anything wrong, we cure it. We fix it. And before the plaintiffs can even file an action, let alone get a class organized. Every possible issue they’ve complained about has been fixed, cured and remedied. So the motivation is denied. From the plaintiff’s counsel perspective, the big payoff is gone. And once that plaintiff’s lawyer knows that they’re not going to make a lot of money on it, the risks to our clients are substantially diminished, if not alleviated altogether.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

Do You Need a Proven, Skilled California and San Diego Class Action Defense Attorney?

Are you searching for an experienced, proven, and skilled California or San Diego Class Action Defense Attorney?  The Watkins Firm has an extensive, successful class action defense, employer defense, made in the USA and organic labeling, business litigation and a proven trial record spanning 40+ years of experience serving the business, science and tech, real estate and medical / healthcare communities here in San Diego and across California. We invite you to review our podcast Episode 18 – Private Attorneys General Act and Class Action Defense, as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.