The top class action firms in the United States split into two camps that rarely overlap. On the plaintiff side, a tight group of specialists keeps reappearing as lead counsel in the biggest cases: Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, and Milberg. On the defense side, the leaders are the full-service corporate firms that most Fortune 500 companies already use for everything else: Gibson Dunn, Kirkland & Ellis, Jones Day, Latham & Watkins, WilmerHale, Skadden, Paul Weiss, and Morgan Lewis. Which firm sits “on top” depends on what you count, and the different rankings count very different things.
Top Plaintiff Firms by Settlement Dollars
The most widely cited plaintiff ranking comes from ISS Securities Class Action Services, which tracks approved settlements in North American securities cases. For 2025, ISS placed Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP first with $916.3 million across 24 settlements, Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP second at $585.9 million, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP third at $558.25 million, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check fourth at $411.75 million, and Pomerantz LLP fifth at $312.4 million. Only 11 plaintiff securities firms crossed $100 million in total settlements that year, and the top three combined accounted for more than half of all recovered settlement dollars.1ISS Securities Class Action Services. Top 50 Plaintiff Law Firms 2025
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd
Robbins Geller has held the top settlement-dollars spot two years running. The firm employs roughly 200 lawyers across 10 offices and advises institutional investors managing over $4 trillion in assets. Its landmark recoveries include $7.2 billion in the Enron securities class action, more than $17 billion in the Volkswagen consumer class action, and $5.5 billion in the Visa/Mastercard antitrust case.2Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP. About the Firm
Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann
Founded in 1983 by Max Berger, BLB&G has recovered over $40 billion for investors and served as lead or co-lead counsel in 37 of the top 100 U.S. securities fraud recoveries of all time. Recent wins include the Delaware Chancery Court trial victory that rescinded Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla compensation package, a $1 billion Wells Fargo securities settlement, and a $450 million Kraft Heinz settlement. With roughly 140 attorneys, the firm is smaller than many peers but consistently near the top of recovery tables.3Benchmark Litigation. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP4Lawdragon. How BLB&G Became a Powerhouse in Shareholder Litigation
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro
Led by co-founder Steve Berman, Hagens Berman reports total victories and settlements valued at over $345 billion. That number is driven heavily by state tobacco litigation that recovered $260 billion, but the firm also served as co-lead counsel in the $14.7 billion Volkswagen emissions settlement and was court-appointed co-lead in the NCAA name, image, and likeness antitrust litigation, which produced a $2.78 billion settlement approved in June 2025.5Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Homepage6ESPN. Judge Grants Final Approval House v. NCAA Settlement
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check
Kessler Topaz represents more than 350 institutional investors, including over 175 public pension funds, and reports nearly $11 billion in total client recoveries. Its most significant results include the $3.2 billion Tyco shareholder litigation and the $2.425 billion Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger litigation. In 2025 and 2026, the firm secured settlements against General Electric ($362.5 million), Celgene ($239 million), and Rivian Automotive ($250 million).7Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP. Securities Fraud Litigation8Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP. Recent Settlements
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
Founded in 1972 in San Francisco, Lieff Cabraser has been involved in 86 cases with verdicts or settlements of $100 million or more, 28 of them exceeding $1 billion. The firm helped secure the $15 billion Volkswagen emissions settlement, a $435 million settlement for tech workers in the Apple/Google wage-suppression case, and a $300 million opioid distributor settlement for third-party payors that earned it a 2025 Law360 Class Action Group of the Year designation.9Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP. Firm Brochure10Law360. Class Action Group of the Year: Lieff Cabraser
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll
Washington, D.C.-based Cohen Milstein has over 100 attorneys and appears as a Legal 500 Tier 1 firm in both antitrust and product liability plaintiff categories. Its practice spans antitrust, civil rights, securities, ERISA, and human rights. Notable results include a $1 billion Wells Fargo securities settlement, a $680 million settlement plus $80 million in debt forgiveness for Native American farmers in Keepseagle v. USDA, and $2.5 billion recovered for pension funds in financial-crisis litigation.11Lawdragon. The Bright Cluster of Lawdragon Legends at Cohen Milstein
Top Plaintiff Firms by Filing Volume
Settlement dollars tell only part of the story. If you rank plaintiff firms by how many federal class actions they file, the picture rearranges. Lex Machina’s 2026 Class Action Litigation Report placed Milberg PLLC first in federal class action filings for the second year in a row, with 669 cases filed in 2025 and 1,650 over the three-year period from 2023 through 2025. A high-volume filer may not top the settlement-dollars tables because filing counts reward breadth of practice, not the size of any single recovery.12Milberg PLLC. Milberg Ranked No. 1 Plaintiffs Law Firm in Federal Class Action Filings for Second Consecutive Year
Top Defense Firms
Companies facing class actions turn to a different kind of firm: large, full-service corporate practices with the headcount to defend multiple cases in multiple jurisdictions at once. The Legal 500 lists 11 firms in Tier 1 for defense-side class action work, among them Gibson Dunn, Kirkland & Ellis, Jones Day, Latham & Watkins, Paul Weiss, WilmerHale, and Morgan Lewis.13The Legal 500. Civil Litigation/Class Actions (Defense)
BTI Consulting Group, which surveys corporate clients directly, named Gibson Dunn, Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, and Ogletree Deakins its “Class Action Powerhouses” for 2024, with 15 more firms named “Class Action Leaders.”14BTI Consulting Group. Clients Name 19 Best of the Best Law Firms in Class Actions
Gibson Dunn
Gibson Dunn has an unusual track record at the Supreme Court. The firm secured the unanimous ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes that tightened the commonality standard for class certification, and it won the Comcast Corp. v. Behrend decision on damages modeling. More recently, Gibson Dunn successfully defended Meta against an antitrust case involving over $156 billion in potential exposure and blocked class certification in cases against Aetna, Uber, and Jimmy John’s.15Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Class Actions
WilmerHale
WilmerHale earned Law360’s Class Action Group of the Year recognition in both 2024 and 2025. The 2025 award cited its defense of Meta; the 2024 honor followed its defense of Norfolk Southern in class actions arising from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, which resolved for $600 million.16Law360. Practice Groups of the Year: Class Action
Skadden
Skadden pioneered the “national counsel” model for mass tort defense, played a role in the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act, and frequently represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as amicus in appeals shaping class action law. Its notable defense results include the $2.5 billion Johnson & Johnson hip-implant MDL settlement, the defense of Lincoln Electric in over 12,000 product liability claims, and work on the Merck Vioxx resolution involving more than 50,000 claims.17Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Mass Torts, Insurance and Consumer Litigation
Who Leads in Which Type of Case
Class action practice divides into categories, and specialization matters. A firm that dominates securities fraud may have no presence in antitrust, and the inverse is just as common.
- Securities fraud. The most tracked segment. 207 new federal filings in 2025 and $2.9 billion in aggregate settlement value. Healthcare and technology companies accounted for 57% of new filings. Robbins Geller, Bernstein Litowitz, Kessler Topaz, Pomerantz, and Glancy Prongay dominate.18NERA Economic Consulting. Recent Trends in Securities Class Action Litigation: 2025 Full Year
- Antitrust. The NCAA NIL settlement at $2.78 billion was the largest antitrust class action resolution of 2025. Top plaintiff firms include Scott + Scott, Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel, Cohen Milstein, and Hagens Berman.
- Consumer protection. Filings surged to 7,650 in 2025, up more than 40% year over year, driven largely by data breach claims.19Duane Morris LLP. Duane Morris Class Action Review 2026
- Employment. Wage-and-hour, worker misclassification, and systemic discrimination cases. Forum selection has become increasingly strategic because of widening circuit splits over FLSA and ADEA certification standards.
- Product liability and mass tort. Harm from defective drugs, medical devices, or environmental contamination. Lieff Cabraser, Hagens Berman, and Cohen Milstein have significant practices here.
- Data breach and privacy. Claims under state and federal privacy statutes. Data breach filings exceeded 1,800 in 2025, a 200% increase since 2022, though courts are dismissing these cases at higher rates.20Lex Machina. Class Action Litigation Report 2026
Several firms cross categories. Robbins Geller handles securities, antitrust, consumer, and insurance class actions. Cohen Milstein covers antitrust, civil rights, ERISA, and human rights. On the defense side, Gibson Dunn, Jones Day, and Kirkland & Ellis defend clients across all categories.
How to Read the Rankings
No single ranking captures the full picture, and the methodologies measure different things. Knowing what each one counts tells you how much weight to give it.
- ISS Securities Class Action Services ranks plaintiff firms by the total dollar amount of approved securities settlements where the firm served as lead or co-lead counsel. Firms are credited with the full settlement fund regardless of how many other firms shared the leadership role. This favors firms that handle the largest individual cases.1ISS Securities Class Action Services. Top 50 Plaintiff Law Firms 2025
- Lex Machina ranks firms by the raw number of federal class action filings, drawn from PACER data. It favors high-volume filers and is independent of settlement outcomes.
- The Legal 500 tiers firms based on a subjective assessment that incorporates client satisfaction metrics (lawyer quality, billing efficiency, sector knowledge, Net Promoter Score), prestige of clients, track record, and depth of bench. Rankings rely on a mix of editorial research and client feedback.21The Legal 500. Civil Litigation/Class Actions (Plaintiff)
- BTI Consulting Group surveys corporate legal departments directly and ranks firms on client-reported satisfaction with class action defense.
- Law360 Practice Groups of the Year selects up to five firms per category based on the significance and complexity of their litigation victories over the preceding year.
- Chambers USA ranks firms and individual lawyers through editorial research including attorney and client interviews. The 2025 guide covered over 2,100 unique ranked firms and more than 28,000 lawyer rankings.22Chambers and Partners. USA Guide
A firm that ranks highly by settlement dollars may not appear at the top of a filing-volume list. A firm honored for a single landmark victory may not rank at all on a cumulative-dollars table. One ranking cannot settle the question of who leads the field; read two or three together, and the shape of the field becomes clear. A small group of specialized plaintiff firms and a somewhat larger group of elite defense firms handle the highest-stakes class litigation in the American legal system, and the names at the top of each list change only slowly from year to year.