Attorneys

r. Middleton primarily focuses in the areas of corporate transaction and derivative litigation, as well as securities fraud litigation. He has significant trial experience, having worked on the trial team responsible for successfully prosecuting In re Clarent Corp. Securities Litigation, which resulted in a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs and against the founder and former CEO of Clarent Corp.

Mr. Middleton also has experience prosecuting corporate transaction shareholder cases. Recently, he assisted in prosecuting breach of fiduciary duty claims on behalf of two public pension systems in the Yahoo!, Inc. Shareholder Litigation in the Delaware Court of the Chancery. He also helped successfully prosecute the Longs Drug Stores Corp. Shareholders Litigation in the Superior Court for the State of California which obtained additional real estate disclosures relating to the acquisition of Longs by CVS Caremark Corporation.

Previously, Mr. Middleton was on the team that successfully prosecuted the Caremark Merger Litigation, a shareholder class action in the Delaware Court of the Chancery, contesting the terms of a proposed merger between Caremark Rx, Inc. and CVS Corporation on behalf of Caremark's shareholders. The litigation resulted in over $3 billion in additional consideration being offered to Caremark shareholders to CVS.

Mr. Middleton assisted in successfully prosecuting and settling two important derivative stock option backdating cases. In the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, he helped bring to a successful conclusion the federal derivative action regarding the options backdating scandal at Apollo Group, Inc. which is the parent company of the University of Phoenix. In the Superior Court of the State of California, Mr. Middleton helped successfully conclude the firm’s representation of Amalgamated Bank as lead plaintiff against certain officers and directors of Activision, Inc. for their alleged role in the backdating of stock options.

In addition, Mr. Middleton has significant experience prosecuting securities fraud class actions. He was on the litigation team responsible for prosecuting In re Williams Securities Litigation, which resulted in a $311 million cash settlement against all defendants. As part of this action, the team engaged in a massive discovery effort which included taking more than 180 depositions and reviewing in excess of 18 million pages of documents. Mr. Middleton was responsible for the prosecution of the case against Ernst & Young for its 2001 audit of Williams Energy Marketing & Trading subsidiary and was instrumental in obtaining a settlement from Ernst & Young in the amount of $21 million.

Mr. Middleton also assisted in prosecuting the In re Accredo Health, Inc. Securities Litigation (U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee) which resulted in a $33 million settlement. Recently, he helped bring to a close the In re Dura Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Securities Litigation (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California).

Among other matters, Mr. Middleton is currently a member of the teams prosecuting Atlas v. Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. (United States District Court, Southern District of California).