Lead Plaintiff = Landlord?

Those Vanderbilt University Law professors sure love writing law review articles about securities class actions. No, we're not talking about Randall S. Thomas, the co-author of two seminal articles on the failure of institutional investors to file claim forms in securities cases, but instead his colleague Richard A. Nagareda. In his forthcoming article, Restitution, Rent Extraction, and Class Representatives: Implications of Incentive Awards, Prof. Nagareda argues that the PSLRA's empowerment of shareholders to serve as "gatekeepers" in selecting and retaining lead counsel comes with a twist:

When the law itself puts into place a gatekeeper to stand between class counsel and the considerable financial returns that flow from control of class action litigation, there is a real possibility that the gatekeeper will catch on to what is happening. The gatekeeper soon may become a toll taker.

For those that may not have perused the two articles co-authored by Prof. Thomas, I have provided links to both below:

Leaving Money On the Table: Do Institutional Investors Fail to File Claims in Securities Class Actions?, 80 Wash. U. L. Q. 855 (2002)

Letting Billions Slip Through Your Fingers: Empirical Evidence and Legal Implications of the Failure of Financial Institutions To Participate in Securities Class Action Settlements, 58 Stanford Law Review 411 (2005)