Welcome to the new web address and home of Best in Class! As you can see, we have been integrated into the revamped GCG website. Kindly let us know if you experience any difficulties with your RSS feeds or otherwise.

Best in Class will take a break next week, but we’ll be back on August 6.

The winner of last week’s contest to identify the SEC’s smallest insider trading case is FOBiC (Friend of Best in Class) Peter Schwartz, who posted here about the SEC’s case against Daniel Harris.  According to the SEC’s litigation release dated August 3, 2004, Harris realized a whopping profit of $541 from his insider trading.

Peter, of course, has the competitive advantage of running the Securities Mosaic and Litigation Mosaic websites, which track SEC enforcement actions, among other things.  Given that Peter’s company, Knowledge Mosaic, is based in Seattle, we know that our contest prize of a GCG umbrella will be put to good use.  Congratulations, Peter!

I think you know your law blog has achieved a certain level of gravitas when it is cited as an authority in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court (see p.16 of this amicus brief filed by 24 states in the Tellabs case, citing to a WSJ Law Blog post).  And no, I’m not just saying that because that same authoritative blog mentioned last week that I was a "blawg pioneer" (thank you).

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As explained here far better than I can do,

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication", a way to "subscribe" to blogs or websites to receive their latest postings or news. These subscriptions are automatically collected and collated by an "RSS reader" or "news aggregator", which can be either a website, embedded browser page or extension, or a stand-alone program. Think of it as a fully-customizable newspaper, feeding in articles from sources you choose.

I use Bloglines but an extensive list of RSS feed aggregators can be found here.

In November 2006, the securities litigation blogosphere suddenly became way too quiet, as the excellent PSLRA Nugget drifted off into what became a three-month slumber, and I pulled the plug on Securities Litigation Watch, the blog that I created and wrote for the three-plus years that I was at ISS.

As of this week, however, the noise is headed swiftly back towards its normal, ear-splitting level.  In addition to the introduction of the new Best in Class blog that you are now reading, the PSLRA Nugget resurfaced last week with this post, and its author, Christopher Jones of the law firm Saxena White, says the Nugget is now back in action.  In addition, Adam Savett of ISS announced yesterday that he put the defibrillator paddles on SLW, and has miraculously restored it to life as a stand-alone blog.

Anticipating big things from both the PSLRA Nugget and SLW 2.0, we are adding them to our list of Class Action and Law Blogs.

Welcome to Best in Class, a blog dedicated to providing a valuable, timely resource for anyone interested in developments involving securities and consumer class action litigation, securities enforcement and legal administration. 

Best in Class is primarily written and maintained by Bruce Carton, Assistant Vice President of The Garden City Group (GCG).  GCG is the premier provider of legal administration services, including class action settlements, the design of legal notice programs, management of Chapter 11 administrations, and expert consultation services.

Prior to joining GCG in 2006, Mr. Carton worked closely with institutional investors and law firms as Vice President of ISS’ Securities Class Action Services.  Mr. Carton also was previously a partner with the law firm Piper Rudnick LLP, where his practice focused on securities class action litigation and SEC enforcement matters.  In addition, Mr. Carton served as Senior Counsel in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.