In the six years since its inception in 2017, DiCello Levitt has made considerable headway in distinguishing itself in the crowded field of plaintiff firms. “I have been very impressed with them,” states a peer. “They file great cases and get great results.” With offices in New York, Chicago, Birmingham, Cleveland, and Washington DC, DiCello Levitt may bear the formal features of a boutique, but its team of litigators continues to outpace the competition in its weight class year after year. The firm, staffed by a broad range of area specialists, is recognized for its diverse arsenal of litigation capabilities across numerous practice areas, a unique trait among firms of its size. DiCello Levitt’s practitioners are applauded by clients for their “strong, enthusiastic, and dedicated approach to representation,” and for “going the extra step to present the best solutions possible.”
The firm recently made a push in the antitrust area, with the auspicious addition of New York’s
Greg Asciolla to the firm from plaintiff shop Labaton Sucharow, which made a strategic decision to return to its core areas of securities class actions. “Those are some good people they got,” observes one contemporary, “and those antitrust people are getting a more supportive platform here than they got [at their former firm].”
Firm mainstays and founding partners Adam Levitt of Chicago and Cleveland’s
Mark DiCello continue to serve in pivotal roles. Levitt, a complex commercial and securities specialist, is identified by a client as “exceptionally bright and creative.” The same client also notes that, “He gets along well with people and is committed to the highest ethical standards. His work is first rate.” Levitt’s practice focuses on complex multidistrict commercial matters, public client representation, and class-action representation across several industries. DiCello, on the other hand, is recognized for his personal injury and mass tort expertise. Levitt represented certified and proposed statewide classes of vehicle owners who purchased GM SUVs with defective V8 5.3-liter engines that allegedly consume an excessive amount of oil, resulting in engine damage and malfunction. Despite having long known of the oil consumption defect, GM failed to disclose it to purchasers and lessees and has refused to offer an effective repair. By so doing, GM has breached its warranties, committed fraud, and violated state consumer protection laws. Levitt has filed 12 class-action lawsuits on behalf of purchasers and lessees of GM vehicles with the defective 5.3-liter engines. In the Northern District of California, Levitt successfully moved for certification of Idaho, California, and North Carolina classes, achieving a $102.6 million verdict for those three states in October 2022. Levitt also served as outside counsel for the State of New Mexico in litigation asserting New Mexico’s consumer protection laws against AbbVie, Abbott Laboratories, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals. These pharmaceuticals companies deceptively marketed the testosterone-replacement therapy drug AndroGel as a cure-all for older men, while concealing its cardiovascular risks.
In Chicago, Amy Keller serves as DiCello Levitt’s privacy, technology, and cybersecurity practice chair, her focuses accordingly lying in data security and consumer privacy matters. Keller acted on behalf of a class of consumers who paid premium prices for Fairlife dairy products because of that company’s promises that their dairy cows were treated humanely, which an undercover operation by Animal Recovery Mission revealed to be false. A $21 million settlement was reached in a class-action lawsuit concerning the defendants’ alleged deceptive labelling and marketing practices. The settlement includes significant monetary relief for consumers, along with meaningful injunctive relief paid separately by the defendants in one of the highest-ever animal welfare labelling practices settlements in history. The stipulated injunction requires, among other things, milk makers who sell to Fairlife to undergo annual farm audits by a third-party group, paid for by Fairlife, over the next three years to ensure the welfare of the animals. It also mandates new employee training focused on proper and safe animal handling with refresher training to be implemented once a year. Also, each supplier to Fairlife must institute a policy barring the hiring of individuals with criminal records for animal abuse or animal cruelty into positions that would involve direct and regular animal contact.
In the firm’s Birmingham office, Diandra “Fu” Debrosse Zimmermann took infant formula entities Abbott and Mead Johnson to task, representing a class of families who suffered premature infant births owing to the defendants’ formulas greatly increasing the risk of a severe gastrointestinal disorder that causes intestinal tissue death and can be fatal.
