This has been an explosive year on the class action scene, particularly with the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, and practitioners in the class action arena may want to calendar the 15th Annual Litigation & Resolution of Complex Class Actions Institute, a Glasser event produced by Legalworks, a company within Thompson Publishing. This year, the Institute convenes on November 16 and 17 in San Francisco and on December 1 and 2 in New York City. The Class Action Fairness Act is featured on the agenda.

The sponsor’s website promises that topics will be addressed from both the plaintiff and defense perspectives, including discussions on how courts are interpreting the Class Action Fairness Act, and new plaintiff and defense litigation and settlement strategies in response to CAFA; insights into the anatomy of a class action before filing, through discovery and certification, and from certification to trial and appeal; analyses of recent and important developments in key substantive class action areas, including securities, antitrust, ERISA and RICO; and evaluation of the rapidly evolving product liability class action landscape and its increasing intersection with consumer protection law.
More than a dozen speakers are lined up for the New York City event, co-chaired by Paul H. Dawes of Latham & Watkins and Joseph M. McLaughlin of Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett. Dawes is also chair of the San Francisco event, where speakers include Randall R. Lee, regional director of the SEC in Los Angeles.