Steve W. Berman

Steve W. Berman said he founded the class action boutique Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in the early 1990s to target social ills and corporate malfeasance. He remains managing partner.

“My inspiration was the civil unrest in the 1960s,” he said. “I wanted to do something about it, and I thought a legal career was the way to go.” He got his law degree at the University of Chicago. “Not known as the birthplace of civil rights lawyers,” he said, “but a great education.”

The firm scored a huge early win in the 1990s tobacco litigation. Hagens Berman represented 14 of the 46 U.S. states that participated and reaped an estimated $100 million of the $206 billion settlement.

Most recently, in November, Berman’s firm and others attained a $200 million preliminary settlement with two automakers over class action claims their cars were built with substandard anti-theft devices. In re: Kia Hyundai Vehicle Theft Litigation, 8:22-ml-03052 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 22, 2022).

“The defendants had a huge PR issue with consumers that they badly wanted to fix,” Berman said in explaining the mechanics of the dealmaking. “The companies and the class had interests that aligned. Sometimes the stars line up like that — it was the same with the Volkswagen emissions cases. Let’s find a solution rather than litigate endlessly.”

A similar deal appears elusive in Berman’s major national cases on behalf of student-athletes seeking compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses in video games and a share of television broadcast contracts. Berman and two other firms are asking for certification of an injunctive relief class and three damages classes. Taken together, they would cover every Division I player in the U.S. In re: College Athlete NIL Litigation, 4:20-cv-03919 (N.D. Cal., filed June 15, 2020).

“This one is complicated,” Berman said. “It’s a dynamic where the NCAA and the schools could solve this if they settled with us, and it’s possible that the pressure of our litigation could move things that way.”

With trial dates set for later this year and early 2025, he added, “The risk for them is to have the courts write the rules. You wouldn’t think they’d want that, but no talks are happening at the moment.”

Instead, the defendants are hoping for relief in Congress, where Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has introduced a bill that would give the NCAA the power to set national name, image and likeness policies. Other federal lawmakers have offered their own NIL proposals. “Basically, the defendants want antitrust immunity,” Berman said.

–John Roemer