Keeping Up With the Joneses

Want to really impress your Judge in a lead plaintiff contest? Well, how about having your proposed lead plaintiff actually show up at the hearing? That’s exactly what Plaintiffs’ counsel did in the Impac Mortgage Holdings action. You see, after Judge Cormac J. Carney (C.D. Cal.) (W. ‘03) declared that “groups of unrelated investors, while not per se impermissible lead plaintiffs under the PSLRA, are not adequate class representatives absent a showing that they are able to coordinate their efforts in the litigation” a Mr. Craig H. Jones (no relation I swear), stepped up to grab the spot, with Judge Carney noting that this “is supported by the fact that Mr. Jones himself appeared at the hearing on this motion with his counsel,” which “indicates that he is committed to involving himself in this litigation and supervising class counsel.”

You can read Schriver v. Impac, issued May 2, 2006, at 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40607.

Nugget: “The fact that the decision to combine the Impac and IMH groups was made by the groups' counsel, with no apparent involvement by the group members, does not bode well for the members' ability to supervise their attorneys.”