MICHAEL J. FLANNERY has focused his practice on representing small investors who were hurt by securities fraud, small businesses and individuals hurt by antitrust price fixing, consumers hurt by fraudulent business practices, and victims of race, sex and other civil rights discrimination.

Prior to joining Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca, Mr. Flannery worked at three of the most successful plaintiffs’ firms in the country, first in Washington, D.C., then in San Diego, California and most recently in St. Louis, Missouri.

Examples of cases where Mr. Flannery has sought justice for injured victims include the following:

• Mr. Flannery helped hundreds of small, independent crude oil producers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia bring a complex antitrust price-fixing case against three giant oil companies.  These small oil producers were being paid less than a fair price because of the companies’ illegal collusion.  Mr. Flannery was part of the team that fought the oil companies, eventually achieving significant payments to the injured victims, through a multi-million dollar settlement.  (Lazy Oil, Co. v. Witco, Corp., Quaker State Corp. and Pennzoil Products, Co., et al., No. 94-110 (Western District of Pennsylvania)).
• Mr. Flannery represented injured investors who were alleging securities fraud against Hollywood Video and the company’s underwriters in connection with a public stock offering.  Serving as a member of the trial team in Murphy v. Hollywood Entertainment Corp., et al., No. 95-CV-1926 (District of Oregon), Mr. Flannery helped defeat a summary judgment motion brought by the underwriters, showing that they were not independent from Hollywood Video and instead helped the company mislead investors with false information.  Mr. Flannery and the trial team took the case through a pre-trial conference, litigating dozens of pre-trial motions, before achieving a multi-million dollar settlement for injured investors.
• Mr. Flannery worked on one of the largest antitrust class actions every brought, serving as part of the team that prosecuted the In re NASDAQ Market-Makers Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1023 (S.D.N.Y.).  Investors alleged that the NASDAQ market-makers set and maintained wide spreads pursuant to an industry-wide conspiracy in one of the largest and most important antitrust cases in recent memory.  After over three years of intense litigation, the case was settled for a total of $1.027 billion, at the time the largest antitrust settlement ever.
• Mr. Flannery represented hundreds of college coaches who were wrongfully denied fair pay by their schools as part of a misguided NCAA effort to cut costs.  Serving as lead counsel trial coordinator in the Restricted Earnings Coach Antitrust Litigation, Mr. Flannery helped numerous witnesses present their testimony during several weeks of trial before a Kansas federal court. After several weeks of trial and the testimony of college coaches representing virtually every major sport, a federal court jury in Kansas City, Kansas awarded the coaches over $70 million. The case was later settled on appeal to the 10th Circuit for $54 million, which was distributed to coaches across the country.
• Mr. Flannery represented hundreds of thousands of consumers, across the nation, who had purchased a computer with a Microsoft operating system.  These consumers charged that they had paid more for the computers than was fair due to Microsoft’s anticompetitive conduct.  Serving as lead counsel in both state and federal cases against Microsoft, Mr. Flannery coordinated and managed over 150 separate cases, resulting in settlements worth hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers across the nation.
• Mr. Flannery represented consumers and small businesses who were forced to pay more for an important anti-anxiety medication, Buspar, because of illegal actions of the drug’s manufacturer, Bristol-Myers Squibb. Mr. Flannery helped these consumers and third-party payers bring claims that Bristol-Myers Squibb had illegally kept a generic version of Buspar off the market. The case resulted in a multi-million dollar cash settlement. In the course of settlement negotiations, Mr. Flannery was specifically appointed to represent the interests of consumers in allocating portions of the settlement funds amongst the various groups who were injured.
• Mr. Flannery served on the executive committee in the Entran II product defect litigation, which settled for several hundred million dollars (Galanti v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., No. 03-CV-209 (District of New Jersey)) on behalf of homeowners across the nation whose homes were constructed with defective Entran II hose. In connection with this settlement, Mr. Flannery worked closely with Jon Cuneo and Charles LaDuca, who were co-lead counsel in the matter.
• Mr. Flannery served as co-lead counsel on behalf of classes of Hispanic and female employees of the Regents of the University of California working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico (Longmire v. Regents of the University of California d/b/a Los Alamos National Laboratory, No. 03-CV-1404 (District of New Mexico)). Plaintiffs alleged that LANL discriminated against female and Hispanic employees in terms of pay, promotion, educational opportunities and other terms and conditions of employment. The case resulted in a $12 million cash settlement for the affected female and Hispanic employees.

Mr. Flannery is committed to serving his local community, through pro bono legal services and charitable fundraising.  Mr. Flannery has provided pro bono legal services to the Alano Society of Greater St. Louis, Missouri, which provides educational and social services to persons in the greater St. Louis area, specifically addressing  addiction treatment and counseling.  Mr. Flannery has also raised funds for Living Water, International (www.water.cc), an organization that seeks to provide clean drinking water to under-resourced areas around the world.