Description of the Practice

This one-lawyer office represents plaintiffs seeking redress from unfair use of corporate power. It prosecutes a very few larger civil cases including:

• shareholders' derivative actions alleging breach of fiduciary duty by officers and directors or alleged aiding and abetting of such breaches by a corporation’s outside advisors,
• shareholders' class actions alleging breach of the duty of disclosure to minority shareholders and unfairness of merger transactions,
• actions by former executives seeking to enforce their contractual rights against corporations seeking to renege, and
• actions alleging the fraud and unjust enrichment of corporate insiders at the expense of their corporations.

In every such case, this office teams up with larger co-counsel with an established record in prosecuting such cases. This helps ensure that this office has the legal infrastructure and firepower available to handle the complex and the unexpected turns that any litigation may take.

Nonetheless, in each of Mr. DiPrima's cases, he plays a highly pro-active, hands-on role. An earlier example is the summary judgment entered on January 3, 2006, requiring Richard Scrushy to pay back to HealthSouth $53 million in incentive bonuses he collected during the accounting fraud at HealthSouth. Mr. DiPrima wrote all the winning briefs and did the oral arguments for the derivative plaintiffs.

At any one time, this office limits itself to about two cases. This helps achieve the focus necessary to deliver quality representation to our client's causes.

The office is unique at the shareholders' plaintiffs' bar in that Frank DiPrima has devoted three decades (1965-1996) to representing corporations and their fiduciaries, including as a general counsel for large, public corporations, and then as a chief operating officer and chief executive officer. His breadth of experience in corporate top management gives Mr. DiPrima a perspective not shared by those whose career is limited to representing plaintiffs. Over his past 27 years of practice, Mr. DiPrima's practice has been dedicated representing plaintiffs in matters like those described above. This firm, including its predecessor firm Mr. DiPrima co-founded in 1997, is unusual in its record of going deep into its cases. In a majority of its recoveries in representative (class or corporate derivative actions or fiduciary duty cases) have been after achieving a judgment, or partial summary judgment as to liability, or after overcoming a defense motion for summary judgment.