Pigford v. Veneman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Removal of counsel would be appropriate only if the Court were to find that it was absolutely necessary to preserve the integrity of the adversary process, as, for example, where an attorney’s conflict of interest undermines the Court’s confidence in the vigor of the attorney’s representation of his or her client, or where the attorney is in a position to use privileged information concerning the other side as a result of prior representation. See Board of Education of the City of New York v. Nyquist, 590 F.2d 1241, 1246 (2d Cir.1979); see also Koller ex rel. Koller v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 737 F.2d 1038, 1055-56 (D.C.Cir.1984), vacated on other grounds, 472 U.S. 424 , 105 S.Ct. 2757 , 86 L.Ed.2d 340 (1985); Ackerman v. National Property Analysts, Inc., 1993 WL 258679 (S.D.N.Y.1993). Here, movants have presented no evidence of a conflict of interest or the potential misuse of privileged information by Class Counsel. Furthermore, the Court sees nothing that would be gained by the removal of Class Counsel now since this ease already has reached the advanced stages of settlement implementation. See In re Barnett, 97 F.3d 181, 184 (7th Cir.1996) (removal of class counsel improper where trial was almost concluded and nothing would be gained from expelling attorneys).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 355 F. Supp. 2d 148 - Pigford v. Veneman

2. “With respect to the motion to vacate the Consent Decree, movants rely on the court of appeals’ statement that the Decree is “unworkable.” See Motion to Vacate Consent Decree at 2. In making that determination, however, the court of appeals was referring only to the tight deadline schedule of the Track B process — since that was the matter before it — -although the judgment was influenced by the court’s assessment of counsel’s overall performance when faced with a workload well beyond what anyone could have imagined and counsel’s failure to seek assistance of this Court or other lawyers earlier. See Pigford v. Veneman, 292 F.3d at 926-27. The Consent Decree therefore was described as “unworkable” only with respect to the Track B process established by the Consent Decree and the relatively few Track B cases in which crucial deadlines were missed. See id.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 355 F. Supp. 2d 148 - Pigford v. Veneman

3. “Class Counsel ably litigated the case throughout its early stages, and they negotiated and entered into a fair settlement for the class as a whole. Indeed, this Court has noted just how remarkable Class Counsel’s performance was at those early stages in vigorously litigating this case to the brink of trial and negotiating a landmark settlement with the government. See [Memorandum Opinion and Order of April 27, 2001] (“Class Counsel have earned accolades of acclaim for their efforts in initiating this case, litigating it to the verge of trial, and then negotiating a truly historic settlement with the government.”). To the extent that the Court has been justifiably critical of Class Counsel, its concerns have related only to counsel’s handling of the implementation process after entry of the Consent Decree.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 355 F. Supp. 2d 148 - Pigford v. Veneman