“These are people who served our country honorably in very dangerous conditions and are suffering life-changing injuries as a result of the company’s misconduct,” said Travis Lenkner of Chicago’s Keller Lenkner, who has filed nine lawsuits so far and has 1,000 clients. “And the nature and extent of the injuries bears that out.”

Even if the mass arbitration strategy is successful, it may be hard to replicate.

Coordinating dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands, of arbitration proceedings is a daunting task. Law Firm Keller Lenkner LLC is behind the 12,501 Uber drivers filing arbitration claims and the 3,420 drivers filing arbitration claims at Lyft.

Very few people have the expertise and capital to engage in a campaign of mass arbitration filings, a plaintiff’s attorney familiar with these types of campaigns told Bloomberg Law.

“Uber treats all of its drivers like independent contractors even though they provide the core service, which is transportation,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Travis Lenkner, managing partner of Chicago-based law firm Keller Lenkner LLC. “By doing that, Uber gets to evade minimum wage, overtime, and sick leave laws. Many of the drivers make less than $8 an hour even though in Massachusetts it is $12 an hour.”

The California Supreme Court’s decision rattled companies and forced state and federal courts to grapple with unresolved, consequential questions. Meanwhile, plaintiffs attorneys find themselves with more leverage in suits challenging employment practices.

“We pride ourselves on the marriage of law and finance,” Gerchen says. “The qualitative side of identifying and managing talent, and the quantitative side of allocating our resources. That’s what we do.”

A North Carolina man has filed a lawsuit against more than a dozen pharmaceutical companies, alleging that their targeted marketing and distribution of prescription opioids has directly led to higher insurance costs for North Carolinians.

Travis Lenkner, a lawyer who is representing Green-Kuchta, said his firm, Keller Lenkner, has filed similar class action lawsuits in 15 other states. They represent a new front against the industry because they seek to recover damages paid by private people as opposed to the lawsuits brought by governments on behalf of the taxpayers.

“Most of the litigation that exists right now is brought on behalf of the taxpayers who paid more in taxes because there were public health care and public safety costs associated with the opioid health epidemic,” Lenkner said.

"The pharmaceutical companies that provided opioids have perpetuated a fraud on the people of South Dakota, and on the American people by lying about the addictive nature of these drugs saying that they weren't addictive," Plaintiffs' attorney Travis Lenkner said.

Philadelphia-based Uber limo drivers told the Third Circuit on Monday that they're similar to migrant workers who are compensated at the whim of an economically dominant entity, meaning they should be recognized as employees entitled to proper wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

A pair of offshore hedge funds that claim to have lost more than $15 million to cover short positions in Tesla have asked for court approval to lead consolidated private securities fraud litigation against the carmaker.