Katie Beran, Partner, Hausfeld LLP

Katie’s practice focuses on pursuing justice for plaintiffs in antitrust, civil and human rights, and environmental litigation. She has received many recognitions and honors in recent years, including being named a Lawyer on the Fast Track by The Legal Intelligencer, a Rising Star in Antitrust Litigation by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers, and an Energy & Environmental Trailblazer by the National Law Journal. Before joining the firm, Katie served as a federal Law Clerk to the Honorable Gerald A. McHugh in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania during the first two years of Judge McHugh’s tenure on the bench.

Mike Gerrard, Professor, Columbia Law School

Michael B. Gerrard teaches courses on environmental law and founded the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He also chaired the faculty of Columbia University’s Earth Institute from 2015 to 2018. He practiced environmental law for 30 years, trying cases, arguing  appeals, handling the environmental aspects of development projects and providing regulatory compliance advice to clients in the private and public sectors. A prolific writer in environmental law and climate change, Gerrard twice received the Association of American Publishers’ Best Law Book award for works on environmental law and brownfields and has written or edited thirteen books. Gerrard was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association’s 10,000-member section of environment, energy, and resources. Gerrard has taught courses at Yale, New York University Law School, Universite Paris 1 Panteon-Sorbonne, University of Malta and Vermont Law School.

Gabrielle Sigel, Partner, Jenner & Block

Gabrielle Sigel is co-chair of the firm's Environmental and Workplace Health and Safety Law Practice and of the firm's Climate and Clean Technology Law Practice. She focuses on environmental, climate change, and safety and health litigation and counseling. Clients seek her representation in complex environmental statutory, common law, Superfund enforcement, and cost recovery actions. She has experience with toxic tort lawsuits and representing clients in claims related to the release of or exposure to hazardous substances. In addition, she counsels corporate clients on a variety of environmental and workplace health and safety regulatory and transactional issues.

The panel will be moderated by Bradford Cornell, Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group. Bradford Cornell is a financial economist and a leading expert on valuation. Over more than forty years, Prof. Cornell has taught courses on, written books and scholarly papers on, and testified in a wide variety of legal matters involving valuation, damages, and securities. He is developing a new course, Energy, Climate Change, and Finance, at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Nathaniel Ament-Stone is an Associate at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. His practice focuses on antitrust, complex commercial litigation, and arbitration. Mr. Ament-Stone has represented clients in the commodities, sports, insurance, and health care sectors, as well as sovereign states and individual clients, in federal courts and in private arbitral tribunals. Mr. Ament-Stone has substantial experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in class-action antitrust litigation, and in environmental/industrial indemnity disputes.

Joshua Davis is a professor of law and director of the Center for Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco. Mr. Davis focuses his scholarly research on complex litigation, ethics and the interplay between the two. Mr. Davis is active in law reform, serving from 2001 to 2004 as the reporter for the committee that drafted California Supreme Court Rules 964 to 967 on multi–jurisdictional practice and testifying before Congress on the pleading standard in federal court. Mr. Davis also writes extensively about antitrust, and is on the board of the American Antitrust Institute.

Pamela Gilbert is a partner at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, where she represents clients before Congress, the executive branch and regulatory agencies.. Ms. Gilbert has over thirty years of experience in consumer advocacy  and has testified before Congress over 50 times. She served as the leader of President Obama’s transition team for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and as Executive Director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission from 1995 to 2001.

Jeffrey Klenk of Berkeley Research Group focuses his practice on applying economic theory to issues of antitrust, as well as to the analysis of damages stemming from commercial litigation matters. Examples of antitrust work undertaken by Mr. Klenk include analysis of alleged price-fixing, tying and bundling arrangements, the use of conditional rebates and resale price maintenance. In the context of damages, he has analyzed reasonable royalties and lost profits in patent infringement matters, lost wages in employment disputes such as wrongful terminations, and public interest and remedy issues in Section 337 cases. He also has significant experience analyzing issues associated with class certification, particularly in the context of alleged price-fixing.

The panel will be moderated by Rose Kohles, Assistant Vice President in Huntington Bank's Settlement Funds Services division.

The keynote speaker for the 4th Annual Class Action Money & Ethics Conference is Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian T. Fitzpatrick, author of “The Conservative Case for Class Actions.”

A lifelong Republican, Professor Fitzpatrick argues that to prevent companies from committing crimes like fraud and price-fixing, society needs either (A) lawsuits filed by private citizens or (B) government oversight. True conservatives who prefer market-based solutions over more government regulation should choose class actions, which are a private-sector mechanism of enforcing commercial law.

Sound interesting? Download a sample chapter of the book or buy it on Amazon.