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Practice Areas

 

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is a fifty-plus attorney law firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and Nashville. We have affiliations with attorneys worldwide.
Since 1972, Lieff Cabraser has successfully represented plaintiffs in individual lawsuits and class actions in the fields of securities and investment fraud, personal injury and mass torts, environmental and toxic exposure, non-personal injury product defect, antitrust, consumer protection, employment discrimination and unfair employment practices, and civil and human rights. Our comprehensive and diverse practice is unique among law firms that represent only plaintiffs.
For each of the last four years, the National Law Journal has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the top plaintiff law firms in the United States. Below is a summary of our practice areas.

Federal and state antitrust laws are designed to protect the economy and to promote competition among businesses by prohibiting price fixing and other forms of anticompetitive conduct.
Claims for damages under the federal antitrust laws are ordinarily limited to businesses or individuals who purchased goods or services directly from the person or company that violates the antitrust laws. Since most products pass through the hands of distributors, wholesalers, or retailers before reaching the consumer, most claims for damages under the federal antitrust laws can only be brought by businesses, not consumers, that are at the top of the distribution chain.
Many state antitrust laws, however, including California’s, also allow consumers and other end-users of products to receive compensation resulting from anticompetitive conduct, even if they did not purchase goods or services directly from the person or company that violates the antitrust laws.
Lieff Cabraser has played a prominent role in federal litigation under the Sherman Act on behalf of businesses in numerous markets including carbon fiber, compact discs, diamonds, flat glass, industrial pigments, linerboard, plastic laminates, polypropylene carpets, prescription drugs, and vitamins.
In recent years, we have successfully litigated antitrust claims against Microsoft Corporation for monopolistic practices, El Paso Gas Co. and wholesale electric companies for allegedly manipulating the price of energy in California, and the cosmetics industry for engaging in anticompetitive practices to prevent discounting of department store cosmetics.
For a list of our current antitrust class actions, click here. To contact an antitrust attorney at Lieff Cabraser, click here.
Aviation
Aviation law presents many complex and challenging issues for practitioners. Specialization in both the legal and technical aspects of aviation is critical. Lieff Cabraser is uniquely positioned to handle this complex area of the law. With over 30 years' experience litigating aviation cases, Lieff Cabraser is willing to consider investigation and representation of claims for any victim or family of victims involved in airplane or helicopter accidents, injuries and/or deaths.
To learn more about our aviation practice, please visit Global Aviation Law.com.
Consumer Protection
State and federal laws provide consumers with broad protection from false and misleading advertising and unfair or deceptive business acts or practices.
Lieff Cabraser represents consumers in class action lawsuits against some of the nation's largest corporations seeking to uphold consumer rights. For example, we succeeded in preventing Wells Fargo Bank from charging customers, often seniors on fixed income, fees on checking accounts that Wells Fargo promised would remain free for the lifetime of the accounts when they were opened.
We have successfully represented homeowners in cases against title insurance companies for charging fees for services never performed and against mortgage lenders and loan servicing companies that engaged in deceptive business practices.
Our lawyers have taken a leading role curbing deceptive and fraudulent business practices in the credit card industry. We have obtained recoveries in class actions cumulatively involving millions of credit cardholders. Cardholders were charged excessive interest, and late and over limit fees by their credit card companies. Settlements in these class actions ended the promotion and sale to cardholders of "add-on products" promising illusory benefits and services.
For a list of our current consumer protection lawsuits, click here. To contact a Lieff Cabraser consumer protection attorney, click here.
Defective Consumer
and Homeowner Products
State and federal laws provide consumers with remedies for products that do not perform as warranted or advertised. We are nationally recognized for our successful prosecution of lawsuits involving a wide range of such defective products, from faulty building and home products to defective cars, tires, computers and electronic products.
We have long represented homeowners against manufacturers of home construction products like siding, shingles and windows that have failed to perform as promised and warranted.
Notable faulty building and home products cases include a settlement in 1998 of nearly $70 million on behalf of property owners whose ABS drainage pipe was allegedly defective and caused property damage by leaking. Commenting on the work of Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel, California Judge Mark B. Simons on May 14, 1998 stated, "The attorneys who were involved in the resolution of the case certainly entered the case with impressive reputations and did nothing in the course of their work on this case to diminish these reputations, but underlined, in my opinion, how well deserved those reputations are."
For a list of our pending product defect cases, click here. To contact an attorney at Lieff Cabraser handling defective products cases, click here.
Unfortunately for consumers, it is not uncommon for computer and computer component manufacturers to produce products with defects or ones that are falsely advertised as having particular qualities or high standards. Each year hundreds of recalls occur due to defects in home and desktop computers, notebooks, monitors, LCD screens, CD, DVD and disc drives, power adapters and batteries.

Lieff Cabraser has successfully represented consumers in a wide range of cases against major manufacturers involving defective computers and computer components. Click here to contact an attorney at Lieff Cabraser handling computer and electronic component defect cases.

Employment Law
Employment Discrimination Lawsuits
Federal and state anti-employment discrimination laws prohibit discrimination in the work place based on an employee's race, color, religion, age, gender, or disability. In addition to overtime pay lawsuits, Lieff Cabraser has helped employees nationwide challenge discrimination in the workplace and initiated lawsuits to compensate the victims of discrimination.
Among the many successes by Lieff Cabraser on behalf of employees in employment discrimination class action lawsuits was the representation of a class of approximately 25,000 female employees of, and applicants for employment with, Home Depot. In 1998, the Court approved a settlement of the case in which Home Depot agreed to modify its hiring, promotion and compensation practices, and paid $87.5 million, one of the highest amounts ever paid in a gender discrimination case.
We successfully prosecuted a class action lawsuit in federal court alleging that the hiring and employment practices of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., one of the nation’s largest clothing retailers, discriminate against Latino, Asian-American and African-American applicants and employees.
Employee Overtime Pay Lawsuits
Lieff Cabraser also represents employees in overtime pay lawsuits.
Sometimes employers misclassify their employees as "exempt," "managers," "executives" or "independent contractors" as a way to prevent those employees from receiving benefits and overtime. Examples include people who work in chain restaurants as managers yet are also required to wait tables and work at the cash register, and IT tech workers who install and maintain computer software and equipment.
Lieff Cabraser has obtained lost wages and benefits for employees in overtime pay lawsuits, including the successful representation of employees of Denny's, Carrow's, the advertising firm TMP Worldwide, the California State Automobile Association, Longs Drug Stores and computer technicians at Computer Sciences Corporation.
Wage and hour suits also arise when employers do not pay employees for all hours worked, even though the work performed is required by the employer and benefits the company. These cases can involve claims the employer forces employees to work "off the clock."
ERISA Lawsuits
Lieff Cabraser litigates claims on behalf of employees and/or retirees alleging interference with their interests under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Among its provisions, ERISA recognizes that pension and 401k plan trustees owe fiduciary duties to the participants and beneficiaries in these plans.
For a list of our current employment law cases, click here. To contact a Lieff Cabraser employment attorney, click here.
Environmental Law and Toxic Exposures
The discharge of toxic chemicals and hazardous materials into the environment can have a devastating effect on the health, livelihood, and property values of those in the vicinity. Environmental pollution may occur over an extended period -- such as the leaking of gasoline from an underground storage tank that results in groundwater contamination -- or swiftly and catastrophically from disasters and accidents at oil refineries, transportation carriers, and coal mining operations, etc.
Lieff Cabraser has prosecuted many environmental law lawsuits, obtaining compensation for families and property owners harmed by toxic exposures. We were co-counsel for commercial fishermen, area businesses, property owners, and native Alaskans who brought claims against Exxon Corporation arising out of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
We represented approximately 10,000 individuals allegedly exposed to a series of toxic releases from a Unocal refinery in Rodeo, California. We also represented more than 800 pregnant women and their unborn children who were allegedly fed radioactive iron without their consent while receiving prenatal care at Vanderbilt University Hospital in the 1940s as part of a government-sponsored experiment. As a result of our case, the plaintiffs received a monetary settlement and an apology from Vanderbilt University.
Click here to learn more about our current environmental law and toxic exposure cases. To contact an environmental law attorney at Lieff Cabraser, click here.
International Litigation
Lieff Cabraser has been at the forefront of recent litigation filed in both United States courts and abroad to remedy the abuses of civil and human rights or provide recovery for economic losses by persons worldwide.
For several years, we have represented the estates of Holocaust victims, survivors and family members in cases against Swiss and other European banks, European insurance companies, and European industrial companies that used concentration camp inmates as slave laborers.
As part of this effort, we served on the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee that prosecuted and settled the case against Swiss banks. We were also instrumental in prosecuting Holocaust-era cases against German private enterprise for using slave and forced labor, and against German (and other) banks and financial institutions for "aryanizing" the property of victims of Nazi persecution. Together, settlements in these cases have totaled over $6.3 billion.
We are currently representing persons with hemophilia from around the world in litigation against the manufacturers of blood factor concentrate contaminated with HIV, along with families of victims of numerous airplane disasters.
To read about our pending international and human rights cases, click here. To contact an international law and human rights attorney at Lieff Cabraser, click here.
Personal Injury and Wrongful Death
The laws of most states provide remedies for personal injuries caused by the negligence of other, including compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages and past and future medical expenses.
A personal injury action is a lawsuit brought by an individual who has suffered physical or mental harm as the result of the wrongful conduct of another. A wrongful death action is a lawsuit brought by a deceased person's family or beneficiaries that alleges the death was attributable to the willful or negligent act of another.
Since our founding in 1972, we have handled and resolved thousands of personal injury and wrongful death cases in state and federal courts throughout the country. Currently, we are prosecuting scores of lawsuits involving injuries and deaths resulting from all types of negligent conduct and design defects, including cases arising out of air disasters and vehicle rollover accidents. We are also representing patients who received defective medical devices, contaminated blood products, and prescription drugs with undisclosed, dangerous side effects.
For example, Lieff Cabraser successfully represented scores of clients who suffered serious heart or lung damage after ingesting the diet drugs fenfluramine (Pondimin) and/or dexfenfluramine (Redux), popularly known as "Fen-Phen." In 2000, in the federal diet drug cases, the United States District Court approved a settlement with American Home Products Corporation, the manufacturer of two diet drugs, valued at $4.75 billion for up to six million consumers.
To learn more about our personal injury cases, click here. To contact an attorney at Lieff Cabraser experienced in personal injury and wrongful death cases, click here.
Securities & Investment Fraud
Federal and state laws provide individual and institutional investors with remedies for securities fraud by companies issuing securities, their officers and directors, underwriters, and accounting and other professionals who may be involved in the fraud. Common claims include "fraud on the market," where a company artificially inflates or maintains the market price of its stock by misrepresenting or failing to disclose the company's true financial performance.
Lieff Cabraser is nationally recognized for its representation of shareholders in cases alleging violations of federal securities laws by major corporations and their directors, including many of the most publicized financial frauds arising out of Silicon Valley.
Not all of our securities cases are brought on behalf of individual investors. We also represent individuals with substantial claims, venture capitalists, institutional investors, government agencies and entities, and public pension plans.
To learn more about our securities practice, please click here. To contact a securities and investment fraud lawyer at Lieff Cabraser, click here.

Important Note: This summary is intended to provide a basic overview of typical cases of our firm. It is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please read our disclaimer.

Our offices
San Francisco
Embarcadero Center West
275 Battery St., Ste 3000
San Francisco, CA 94111-3339
Tel. (415) 956-1000
Fax. (415) 956-1008
New York
780 Third Avenue
48th Floor
New York, NY 10017-2024
Tel. (212) 355-9500
Fax. (212) 355-9592
Nashville
One Nashville Place
150 4th Ave N., Ste 1650
Nashville, TN 37219-2423
Tel. (615) 313-9000
Fax. (615) 313-9965
Copyright 2008 Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
 

Antitrust
Antitrust
Learn about cases involving price-fixing and anti-competitive conduct.
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Aviation
Aviation
We represent families of loved ones who died in airplane accidents. Learn more.
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Human Rights
Human Rights
We uphold civil and human rights in the U.S. and worldwide. Learn more.
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Consumer Protection
Consumer Protection
We seek to halt unfair business practices that harm consumers nationwide. Learn more.
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Employment Law
Employment Law
Read how we hold employers liable for discrimination and other unfair workplace practices.
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Product Defects
Product Defects
We protect consumers and homeowners against faulty products, including building products. Learn more.
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Investment Fraud
Investment Fraud
We are committed to advancing the rights of investors. Learn more.
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Toxic & Environmental Exposures
Toxic Exposures
We are committed to protecting our communities from exposure to toxic materials. Learn more.
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