U.S. FEDResearch
SSRN: Engstrom, Hemphill and coauthors find MDL leadership is open to entry but stratified
In an October 14, 2026 SSRN preprint, David Freeman Engstrom, C. Scott Hemphill, David Noll, Adam S. Zimmerman and four coauthors analyze every leadership appointment across more than two decades of federal multidistrict litigation. They find plaintiffs' leadership is not highly concentrated and shows significant entry, but report persistent stratification in the plaintiffs' bar, substantial judicial delegation and weak institutional constraints.
Key points
- The authors built a novel dataset of every MDL leadership appointment over more than two decades, supplemented by practitioner interviews.SSRN
- Using conventional antitrust metrics, they find MDL leadership is not highly concentrated and is marked by significant entry.SSRN
- Repeat co-appointment of the same lawyers is episodic rather than pervasive or cartel-like, the paper reports.SSRN
- The study nonetheless finds persistent stratification in the plaintiffs' bar, substantial judicial delegation and weak institutional constraints.SSRN
- The authors describe MDL leadership as an ad hoc regime of public authority and urge reforms on capacity, representation and accountability.SSRN