{"id":1219,"date":"2019-11-06T09:37:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T14:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-108\/volume-108-issue-1-november-2019\/its-good-to-have-the-haves-on-your-side-a-defense-of-repeat-players-in-multidistrict-litigation\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:14:05","slug":"its-good-to-have-the-haves-on-your-side-a-defense-of-repeat-players-in-multidistrict-litigation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-108\/volume-108-issue-1-november-2019\/its-good-to-have-the-haves-on-your-side-a-defense-of-repeat-players-in-multidistrict-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Good to Have the \u201cHaves\u201d on Your Side: A Defense of Repeat Players in Multidistrict Litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\">Repeat players in multidistrict litigation (MDL) get a bad rap. When thousands of cases from all over the country are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, it\u2019s no wonder that the judge assigned to manage the litigation picks experienced lawyers to lead the effort. But critics argue that the small group of elite lawyers who show up again and again in leader-ship positions on the plaintiffs\u2019 side of MDLs can collude with each other and with repeat players on the defense side to restrict competition and shape the rules of the game to their advantage\u2014all to the detriment of the one-shotter clients that they represent. Those criticisms have gotten louder as MDL has grown to make up more than one-third of the federal civil docket and encompass some of the nation\u2019s largest controversies, such as the opioid epidemic, the BP oil spill, the NFL concussion litigation, and many defective product cases. In this Article, we challenge this narrative, drawing on Marc Galanter\u2019s seminal explanation for why the \u201chaves\u201d come out ahead in litigation. Although the risks the \u201chaves\u201d pose are real, we argue that repeat players add significant value when they represent one-shotter plaintiffs and that such value may be worth running the risks. We show how MDL\u2019s unique structure\u2014its formal commitment to individualism but functional operation as a tight aggregation\u2014allows repeat-player plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers to \u201cplay for rules\u201d more effectively than either class action suits or traditional one-on-one litigation. And with potential reforms to MDL procedure on the agendas of both Congress and the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, we urge policymakers and scholars not to lose sight of the significant benefits to plaintiffs of having repeat players on their side.<\/p>\n<p>Continue reading <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2019\/11\/Its-Good-to-Have-the-22Haves22-on-Your-Side.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"cx_external_link\"><span class=\"cx_external_hyperlink\">It\u2019s Good to Have the \u201cHaves\u201d on Your Side: A Defense of Repeat Players in Multidistrict Litigation<\/span><span class=\"visually_hide\">(This link opens in a new tab)<\/span><span class=\"cx_external_icon\"><\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Repeat players in multidistrict litigation (MDL) get a bad rap. When thousands of cases from all over the country are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, it\u2019s no wonder that the judge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":0,"parent":1206,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-1219","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1222,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1219\/revisions\/1222"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}