产品责任和集团诉讼上诉

Sidley’s distinguished team, focused on class action appeals, delivers exceptional results in some of the most significant class actions pending nationwide. We represent high-profile clients across a range of industries and substantive areas of law, including antitrust, securities, consumer products, higher education, financial services, insurance, and data privacy. We assist clients in seeking and opposing interlocutory appeal of class certification decisions pursuant to Rule 23(f), handling those appeals once granted, and briefing and arguing dispositive and class certification motions in the trial courts to shape the issues for appeal.

Consistently Ranked as a Leading Firm for Appellate Law
Chambers USA – Nationwide Appellate Law (2006–2026)

Our interdisciplinary litigation group is deeply collaborative — not just within the litigation and class action spheres, but across the entire firm. This gives us a strategic edge when distilling complex regulatory schemes and technical subject matter for courts and opposing counsel. Our class action lawyers thrive on solving problems. We meet every challenge and opportunity by tapping into Sidley’s deep multidisciplinary capabilities. Cross-practice collaboration is embedded in our work and translates directly into how we show up for clients, particularly in moments of crisis.

Experienced Appellate Advocacy

Increasingly, clients facing class actions are simultaneously confronting regulatory scrutiny, reputational risk, parallel proceedings, and rapidly evolving policies. Sidley’s ability to address all of those challenges through a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach is a defining strength of our practice. Our lawyers routinely integrate appellate advocacy and critical briefing with deep knowledge of class action procedure, complex areas of laws — whether antitrust, cybersecurity, food and drug, or securities — and particular industries to provide a single coordinated defense.

Named to the Appellate Hot List for the Eighteenth Year in a Row
The National Law Journal 2025

In particular, we have recently achieved significant successes for our clients in cases involving arbitration, antitrust, data breach or data privacy, and FDA regulations, many of which continue to be growing areas of class action litigation nationwide. We bring to bear deep knowledge of the class action litigation space and extensive experience with the underlying subject matter in these cases, including individuals who have served in senior government roles, including with the U.S. Department of Justice.

How We Add Value

• Class Certification: We have won appeals on behalf of clients in matters reversing decisions granting class certification and defending denials of class certification, as well as appeals defending the approval of class certification settlements. Our team also regularly embeds in class certification cases at the district court level, and has argued against class certification motions, litigated evidentiary hearings on class certification, and briefed and argued dispositive and injunctive motions in our class action cases.
• 23(f) Review: Our lawyers bring deep experience in petitioning for and opposing Rule23(f) review of class certification decisions, as well as handling class certification appeals after the grant of review. We frequently litigate such cases, which encompass significant exposure and novel legal issues, in federal appeals courts across the country.
• Arbitration: We have significant experience in enforcing our clients’ arbitration and class action waiver provisions in the trial courts and on appeal.
• Trials: Our lawyers have extensive experience supporting trial teams and cultivating issues for appeal in cases across a range of substantive legal fields and industries.

The strength of Sidley’s class action appeals representations is reflected in the depth of our talent. Our team combines nationally recognized leaders with an exceptional next generation of partners who are driving many of the firm’s most significant victories. The practice benefits from the contributions of Chambers-ranked litigators and market-leading practitioners across the antitrust, appellate, cybersecurity/privacy, consumer class action, and securities disciplines. Our lawyers operate as a single integrated team across offices and practices, enabling us to marshal the right experience for each client and each case.

Sidley lawyers boast “a robust appellate practice” with “considerable expertise in a wide variety…of class action disputes.”
Chambers USA 2026

As class action litigation continues to evolve alongside new technologies, emerging business models, and shifting regulatory priorities, Sidley remains well-positioned to guide clients through the most significant disputes in the country. Our breadth of work demonstrates our ability not only to defend against novel claims, but also to shape the law in ways that have lasting significance for our clients and their industries.

Our team handles sophisticated matters that demonstrate our versatility and our ability to help clients navigate the ever-changing landscape of class action litigation.

Recent experience includes:

23(f) Petitions and Ensuing Appeals

• Won reversal for TD Ameritrade in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, for the second time, of a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska certifying a nationwide federal securities class action against TD Ameritrade and its CEO with regard to TDAmeritrade’s order routing practices. We twice obtained 23(f) review. The second putative class reversed by the Eighth Circuit sought at least $9.99 in damages per order routed by TDAmeritrade on each of hundreds of millions of trades over a multi-year period.
• Assisted in obtaining reversal of certification of an 11.8 million-member class after successfully petitioning for 23(f) review in In re E.I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. C-8 Personal Injury Litig., 87 F.4th 315 (6th Cir. 2023).
• Represented four railroad defendants in a proposed class action seeking $24 to $33 billion in treble damages for an alleged conspiracy to impose rate-based fuel surcharges. Sidley successfully petitioned to the D.C. Circuit from the district court’s certification of the class of rail shippers, the second time the question of class certification in the case had gone to the D.C. Circuit, and the second time Sidley’s clients prevailed.

Antitrust

• Secured dismissal in the district court and affirmance by the Second Circuit of claims against Princeton University in Choh v. Brown University et al. in which plaintiffs challenged the Ivy League’s longstanding prohibition on athletic scholarships as an alleged price-fixing conspiracy under the Sherman Act.
• Represented the Big 12 Conference in winning dismissal with prejudice and then the Second Circuit’s affirmance in litigation challenging restrictions related to student-athlete name, image, and likeness compensation.

Consumer Class Actions

• Represented Citigroup in obtaining reversal in the Second Circuit of a court’s holding that plaintiff could pursue a nationwide class action to enforce alleged violations of bankruptcy courts’ discharge injunctions. The Second Circuit held as a matter of law that plaintiff could not seek class-wide relief.Prevailed on behalf of a dietary supplement manufacturer in a consumer class action case on appeal in the Ninth Circuit in which plaintiffs alleged false statements regarding the health benefits of one of the company’s product lines. Following nearly three years of hard fought litigation, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted Sidley’s motion for summary judgment and denied plaintiff’s motion for class certification as moot. After Sidley briefed and argued the appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed judgment in our client’s favor, bringing an end to this long-running litigation.
• Obtained denial of class certification on behalf of a major American entertainment company in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in which plaintiffs claimed improper calculation of royalties associated with the digital streaming of recordings. In denying the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, the court noted that it appeared unlikely that the plaintiffs’ claim would even withstand summary judgment, including based on deposition testimony from the plaintiffs that Sidley secured during the course of discovery.
• Represented a major financial services company in successfully defeating a motion to certify a class of brokerage customers, persuading a judge in the Northern District of California that the class could not be certified due to individualized issues relating to customer orders. Sidley then successfully opposed plaintiffs’ motion for leave to appeal, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied. Sidley then defeated plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class certification and won a motion to compel arbitration.
• Represented a software company in appealing a split decision from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which compelled one of two putative class action representatives to arbitrate his claims, but held that the other plaintiff was not bound by arbitration. The Third Circuit held that the district court had been correct to find that our client’s website-based terms of service generally required arbitration. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded the district court’s ruling that the other plaintiff was not subject to arbitration, holding that discovery was needed because only his spouse (not himself) had agreed to those terms. Following the Third Circuit’s remand, the plaintiff dismissed his claims rather than endure discovery. The other plaintiff dismissed his claims rather than arbitrate.
• Defended a putative nationwide class action on behalf of a major financial services company in which plaintiffs alleged that our client’s practices for escheating unclaimed cashier’s checks violated federal escheat law and various state laws. Sidley won a motion to compel the arbitration of the two original lead plaintiffs’ claims. The court rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that their escheat-related theories were not encompassed by our client’s arbitration agreements with its customers. Thereafter, our client moved to dismiss for lack of Article III standing and for failure to state the claims of two newly added plaintiffs not subject to arbitration. In the face of our client’s motion to dismiss, those two plaintiffs dismissed their cases.

Defending Class Action Settlements from Objection

• Leading, on behalf of a software company, the appellate defense in the Ninth Circuit of the Northern District of California’s decision approving a nationwide class action settlement that Sidley negotiated with consumer class plaintiffs regarding its alleged use of tracking technologies. Objectors to the settlement contend that counsel for the class did not secure enough relief for the class to render the settlement fair and reasonable, and that the procedures for administering the class settlement did not comport with Ninth Circuit law. The appeal is significant given the close scrutiny the Ninth Circuit has given to class settlements in recent years, as well as the proliferation of related litigation in the Ninth Circuit and nationwide.
• Defending, on behalf of a major consumer goods corporation, a Second Circuit appeal of a trial court’s approval of a class settlement that, if affirmed, will successfully conclude the last of a series of putative class action cases that began in 2014. Those cases all have been premised on incorrect allegations that our client’s flushable wipes are not in fact flushable.