When lawyers were tossing around names to submit to the judge for a plaintiffs leadership team two years ago in a multidistrict litigation proceeding, Amy Keller at Chicago's DiCello Levitt threw her name in. After all, she had experience serving as co-lead counsel in the MDL over the Equifax data breach.

"One of the attorneys, who was a man, made the comment of how I had already been appointed co-lead counsel in two other cases, and he was concerned I would not be able to handle a third case," Keller recalled in an interview. "I found that very interesting because never in my career have I ever heard someone say, 'Oh, can he handle another case?' "

Keller said "thinly veiled sexism" still exists in the mass tort and class action bar. But for her part, she moved on to other cases and has obtained six MDL appointments in the course of four years.

Keller's trajectory as a woman in the male-dominated MDL bar might be exceptional, but an analysis of appointment orders for federal MDL proceedings initiated from 2016 to 2019 suggests her experience may exemplify a growing trend.

Women made up 40% of the 30 lawyers who received appointments to more than three MDLs during that period. The data gathered by Law.com show many large plaintiffs firms — once reliant on a single, often white male senior partner to lead the MDL practice — are spreading out appointments to a younger and a more diverse set of lawyers.

Keller tied with Melissa Emert, formerly of Stull, Stull & Brody and now at Kantrowitz, Goldhamer & Graifman, as the woman with the highest number of appointments for the review period. The most any attorney received was 10.

"These are bad-ass attorneys who are also women," said Mike Morgan of Morgan & Morgan in Orlando, which ranked second in MDL appointments with 16 going to six men and two women. "When we look at the way the MDLs form, it was largely done before anybody got to the courtroom: The stereotypical, with cigars and whiskey, and people deciding who goes where. Then they'd say, 'Judge, great news! We've decided.' That doesn't happen today."

One area that still lags: minority attorneys. While more nonwhite lawyers have gotten appointments, those at the very top are few. Of the top 30 on Law.com's list, only two identified as nonwhite.

Women Making Inroads

Much has changed since five years ago when criticism mounted that "repeat players," mostly white male attorneys, got the bulk of the leadership appointments. Leadership teams are becoming more diverse, and women are increasingly getting lead counsel roles.

Law.com's research unveiled new faces spearheading the cases. True, many are at firms known for MDL work, and most are male and white — but not all.

The data does not account for the size of an MDL, practice area or the actual position on an MDL team, whether it is lead counsel or liaison counsel. It also reflects only MDLs where judges issued orders. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, which manages the creation of MDLs, does not publish data on attorney leadership appointments.

Law.com conducted its analysis by reviewing appointment orders issued by judges in 75 MDLs instantiated from 2016 to 2019. In tabulating the rankings, appointments to individual cases were counted only once even if an attorney was appointed to multiple leadership positions. Gender and ethnic diversity data was determined using names, public profile pictures and by contacting attorneys directly. Due to limits in available data, the analysis was not able to factor in sexual orientation diversity.

Elizabeth Burch, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, compiled similar research for her 2015 article "Judging Multidistrict Litigation," which found judges overwhelmingly appointed "repeat players" in MDLs. At that time, her list of 50 top MDL attorneys focused on cases involving products liability and sales practices was 22% women.

Progress, she said, "seems really slow."

"When I talked to people about this many years ago, back around 2015, maybe 2016," she said, "the story I got as to why women weren't more front and center … was that each firm had a go-to big name. So even if the women had lots of experience and had done a lot of work in the trenches, they were never the name put forth by the firm."

Elizabeth Cabraser of San Francisco's Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, one of top women attorneys in MDLs, said that's no longer the case, at least for some firms. Among her firm's 19 MDL appointments, she is handling three. Another six women and five men are taking on the other cases.

"Some firms are all about the person at the top, usually a guy," Cabraser said in an interview. "Other firms have made a more conscious effort to advance the careers of their partners, including women partners, other partners coming up, and partners of color. We're beginning to see that happen."

Ben Hancock contributed data analysis for this report.