Philadelphia Partner Gary Smith, Jr. Named to The Legal Intelligencer’s list of 2019 Pennsylvania Trailblazers
We are happy to announce that Philadelphia-based partner Gary Smith, Jr. has been honored as a 2019 Pennsylvania Trailblazer by The Legal Intelligencer!
Gary’s role in a major price-fixing case involving dental supplies (In re Dental Supplies Antitrust Litigation) earned him a spot on this prestigious list, spotlighting a handful of individuals considered “agents of change.” In this case, Hausfeld serves as co-lead counsel for a class of dental practices in an antitrust class action alleging an illegal group boycott and price fixing conspiracy.
In the Dental Supplies antitrust litigation, Gary beat the FTC to the courthouse by two years. While many antitrust cases follow government investigations, Dental Supplies turned that on its head. The FTC filed suit only after reviewing the discovery in Dental Supplies, borrowing its legal theories and evidence.
First filed in January 2016, by September 2018 – after the completion of both fact and expert discovery, which involved over 100 fact and 6 expert witness depositions, the production of millions of documents, and a dozen expert reports – the case settled for $80 million. This is a land speed record for complex antitrust cases, and Gary was involved in all phases of the litigation, including arguing final approval of the $80 million settlement.
At the Final Approval Hearing, Judge Cogan lauded the efforts of the private plaintiffs’ counsel, noting that they had achieved a “fairly large recovery” for the individual class members in “an extraordinarily complex antitrust case involving levels of data that I have not seen in any other case before me.” Judge Cogan described the favorable reaction of the 50,000 dentists to the settlement as “about as good as it gets,” further demonstrating the high quality of the work performed by the private plaintiffs’ counsel in obtaining the settlement. And Judge Cogan elaborated on the broader policy implications of the settlement in that it would deter future violations of the antitrust laws, noting: “This is a substantial recovery that has the deterrent effect that class actions are supposed to have, and I think it was done because we had really good Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in this case who were running it.”
The full 2019 Pennsylvania Trailblazers issue can be found here (Gary’s profile can be found on page 13).