To Kill a Class Action

To Kill a Class Action presents the working framework for defending aggregated litigation across the modern docket. Harvey Specter and Patty Hewes draw on major MDL engagements, mass tort defense, and complex commercial class actions to produce a strategic treatment of the defense bar's most consequential procedural battleground.

The book moves from the threshold question — whether the case will be allowed to proceed as a class — through the substantive defenses, the procedural tools available at each stage, and the settlement architecture that often determines the final result. The authors treat class action defense as a discipline that rewards integrated strategy rather than reactive motion practice.

Coverage

Substantive chapters address Rule 23 certification opposition, ascertainability and commonality challenges, predominance analysis under Comcast and its progeny, choice of law in nationwide and multistate classes, the role of expert testimony in certification proceedings, decertification motions, settlement classes, and coordinated MDL practice. Each chapter includes procedural checklists and case-study examples drawn from major federal class actions.

MDL and Mass Tort Application

The MDL chapters draw on the authors' experience with major wildfire, product liability, and commercial class action engagements. The treatment addresses the structural mechanics of MDL practice, common-benefit fund arrangements, settlement coordination across thousands of individual claims, and the role of bellwether trials in resolving aggregated dockets.