When is a proposed settlement between class action plaintiffs lawyers and a defendant company collusive and unfair to the class? That is the question that will on Wednesday be before a Massachusetts state court judge who is presiding over a contentious wage-and-hour class action against Wal-Mart. The eight-year-old case has pitted warring groups of plaintiffs lawyers against each other.

After Google took home a defense verdict Wednesday in the patent phase of a blockbuster trial, the jury foreman said Oracle's lawyers at Morrison & Foerster and Boies Schiller had gained few supporters on the most crucial copyright issue in the case.

Two months after opting out of a class action against Pfizer, a group of major public and private institutional investors are taking matters into their own hands. On Thursday the breakaway investors and their lawyers at Bernstein Litowitz filed their own securities fraud suit, accusing Pfizer of duping shareholders about risks associated with two once-blockbuster drugs.