Plaintiff Firm Gets OK to Team with State AG

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has rejected, for now, a challenge by defendant drug companies to a working alliance between plaintiff firm Cohen Milstein and the New Hampshire attorney general’s office. Cohen Milstein is an aggressive and politically active plaintiff firm that gave more than $70,000 to state attorney general candidates from 2010-2015, according to this article from Legal NewsLine, a news service owned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. Under the agreement in the New Hampshire matter, Cohen Milstein will work with the New Hampshire AG’s office to determine if there is a plausible case against Actavis Pharma, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals over their marketing of opioids, and it will work with the AG on the litigation if the case is pursued. The firm would then get 27 percent of the net recovery, exclusive of litigation costs. The New Hampshire high court, reversing a judge’s decision, said the defendants did not have standing to sue over the contingency agreement because at this point there has been no settlement or reward. The court also, this article notes, “ruled against the companies’ assertion that the contingency fee agreement violates the Ethics Code.”