Richard M. Heimann

Richard M. Heimann is spending much of his time lately working on a large insider-trading action against a company accused of paying tens of millions of dollars to Ohio state lawmakers, including the now-imprisoned speaker of the state house, to gain favorable legislation. MFS Series Trust I v. FirstEnergy Corp., 2:21-cv-05839 (S.D. Oh., filed Dec. 17, 2022).

Soon, he will be equally busy with a very high-profile shareholder derivative action against Fox Corp. over the nearly $800 million settlement it had to pay a voting machine company to end a libel suit tied to the 2020 presidential election.

“This is an enormous case in terms of not just the dollars, but the whole issue of Fox News … and the political environment in the country.”

The judge overseeing the shareholder class action selected Heimann’s firm and two others as lead counsel on Dec. 29. In re Fox Corporation Derivative Litigation, 2023-0148 (Del. Ch. Ct., consol’d. Sept. 6, 2023).

But Heimann doesn’t just litigate securities cases. He also represents victims of mass torts. When San Francisco’s suit against the opioid industry finally went to trial in 2022, Heimann was the co-lead trial counsel against Walgreens, the one defendant that hadn’t settled. City and County of San Francisco v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 3:18-cv-07591 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 18, 2018).

At times, Heimann primarily handled securities and financial fraud litigation. Other times, he concentrated on consumer cases. “I tried probably two dozen cases against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris” in the early 2000s. What he does, “just depends on what’s going on most actively with the law firm.”

Defining himself as a trial lawyer means he tends to focus on the middle and later phases of litigation. For the last several months, he has been very busy with intense discovery in the FirstEnergy case. “We’re taking literally dozens of depositions in the case,” he said.

But at this point, he has stepped back temporarily in another large financial litigation. The cases accuse several banks of manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate. While he achieved successes leading the litigation in the district and appeals courts, the case is in the pleading stage. In re Libor-Based Financial Instruments Antitrust Litigation, 1:11-md-02262 (S.D.N.Y., consol’d. Sep. 14, 2011).

“My role really comes about later in cases once they get into discovery and then moving towards trial.”

— Don DeBenedictis