Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
By Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso
A process server hands your company a class action complaint late on a Friday. By Monday you are reading a theory that turns one disputed
charge or one form document into a claim brought on behalf of thousands of people. The instinct is to wait, to answer the complaint, and to see how bad it gets. That instinct is a mistake. What a defendant does in the first thirty days often decides the case, because the early choices
about where the lawsuit is heard and whether the plaintiff can clear the threshold hurdles shape everything that follows.
This is a plain guide to the opening moves that protect a business sued in a putative class action, from removal to federal court through
the standing defenses that can end the case before a class is ever certified.