Firm Profile > Lawyers

Kenneth A. Wexler
Partner
kaw@wexlerwallace.com

Office: (312) 346-2222
Direct: (312) 589-6270
Fax: (312) 589-6271

Chicago Office
55 West Monroe St., Ste. 3300
Chicago, IL 60603

Practice Areas

Professional Profile

For almost 30 years, Ken has devoted himself to helping those whose rights have been denied, or who have been victims of the unscrupulous or fraudulent actions of others, usually by more powerful entities. Founder of Wexler Wallace, Ken was also a founding partner of the firm formerly known as Miller Faucher Cafferty and Wexler LLP. Before then, he was a partner in the Chicago law firm then known as Much Shelist Freed Dennenberg Ament & Eiger, PC.

Ken has been in leadership positions in cases with far-ranging subject matters, including brand name manufacturer suppression of competition from generic drugs, fraudulent and deceptive product overcharges, discrimination and harassment, corporate waste and mismanagement, cost recovery for defective medical devices, false advertising, and government fraud. Ken's practice is devoted to complex class action and commercial litigation, which includes claims brought under federal and various state false claims statutes, and the securities and antitrust laws. At present, Ken is focused on protecting issuers of municipal bonds, recovering losses for pension funds and other investors that were victimized by unlawful and improvident securities lending practices, and cost-recovery for victims of healthcare fraud, including Taft-Hartley Funds, self-insured employers and governments.

Appointed and Representative Positions

Ken has served as lead counsel in numerous high profile cases, including the following:

New England Carpenters Health Benefits Fund v. First Databank, Case No. 1:05-CV-11148 (D. Mass.), Ken is co-lead counsel on this matter alleging a RICO conspiracy to abruptly increase the published spread between average wholesale prices and wholesale acquisition costs for pharmaceuticals in the 2001-2002 time frame, causing purchasers to pay billions of dollars extra for needed drugs. Two of the defendants, First Databank and Medispan, settled by agreeing to roll back the average wholesale prices of affected drugs. Estimates have pinned the savings to consumers and third-party payers from this rollback at hundreds of millions of dollars. The remaining defendant, McKesson Corp., settled on a class wide basis for $350 million.

In Re: Pet Food Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1850 (D. NJ.), Ken is co-lead counsel in this class action which sought damages against numerous pet food manufacturers and retailers relating to the manufacture and sale of contaminated pet food alleged to have killed or injured dogs and cats throughout the United States and Canada. The case, which began with a pet food recall in March, 2007, settled in May, 2008, for $24 million. The settlement, which is currently on appeal in the Third Circuit, is notable not only for its swift and effective use of the class action device, but also for potentially paying to pet owner claimants monies they could not otherwise have recovered had their cases actually gone to trial.

In re: Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation, MDL No. 1456 (D. Mass.), Wexler Wallace initiated a wave of class-actions nationwide against the dominant pharmaceutical manufacturers to stop the fraudulent publication of a fictitious price called Average Wholesale Price, or AWP. Manipulation of AWP by defendants caused federal and state governments, third party payors and consumers to vastly overpay for prescription drugs. Ken was appointed co-lead counsel and has been actively involved in all aspects of this monumental case. After a bench trial of part of the action in 2007, the District Court entered judgment against Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca on behalf of two classes of Massachusetts consumers and TPPs. In 2008, eleven major pharmaceutical companies agreed to a $125 million nationwide settlement, benefiting consumers and third-party payers. Additionally, a settlement was approved by the Court in which GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay $70 million; final approval was granted for $24 million settlement with AstraZeneca for consumer Medicare Part B claims for Zoladex; and preliminary approval was granted for a $19 million settlement with Bristol Myers Squibb. The 2007 judgment against AstraZeneca was recently affirmed by the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The separate $24 million settlement with AstraZeneca remains on appeal.

Illinois Funeral Directors Association Litigation, (Multiple Cases), Wexler Wallace has filed four cases to date attempting to recover losses to the Illinois Pre-Need Trust, which was established to safeguard deposits intended to pre-pay for funeral services and related merchandise. As alleged in the Complaints, the losses to the Trust resulted from the wrongful conduct of various Merrill Lynch entities, insurance companies and others. These cases are pending in state and federal courts throughout Illinois.

Nichols v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., Case No. 2:00-CV-06222-JP (E.D. Pa.), An antitrust case in which plaintiffs alleged that several of Defendants' patents for paroxetine hydrochloride were improperly listed in the FDA Orange Book and that Defendants' patent infringement litigation against various generic drug manufacturers was "sham" litigation designed to keep generic versions of Paxil® off the market. Ken, as one of three co-lead counsel, had to build the Paxil case from the ground up. The Paxil litigation is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, to allege misuse of patents to delay generic competition in a pharmaceutical market brought under Section 2 of the Sherman Act rather than Section 1. Despite these hurdles, and after extensive discovery and investigation, the case settled for $65 million in cash. The favorable response to this hard-fought settlement was overwhelming ---- over 60,000 consumers filed claims.

Wiginton v. CB Richard Ellis, Inc., Case No. 1:02-CV-06832 (N.D. Ill.) A nationwide class-action brought by WW seeking to remedy systemic sexual harassment in the offices of CB Richard Ellis nationwide.

In re BP Products North America, Inc. Antitrust Litigation, MDL No. 1801 (N.D. Ill.) Ken has again been appointed interim co-lead class counsel, representing purchasers of propane who were injured by BP's alleged unlawful manipulation of the price of propane gas after it cornered the TET propane market in February 2004.

Memberships

Legal Chicago Bar Association
Illinois Bar Association
American Bar Association
Chicago Council of Lawyers
Illinois Trial Lawyers Association
Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association
American Association for Justice
Fellow of the Roscoe Pound Institute
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy

Charitable

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
Lifetime Member of the 100 Club of Chicago
Delegate to People to People International

Publications, Presentations & Teaching

Ken’s insight and expertise has been sought by cable television, local radio, the London Economist and Property Week. He has written on class action issues for the American Association for Justice, actively lectures on consumer fraud and lending discrimination, and has been a panelist at national legal seminars.
Ken was recently interviewed on SkyRadio, as profiled in the December issue of Fortune Magazine as one of America’s premier lawyers. He has been interviewed on Chinese television regarding the Bausch & Lomb litigation.
Ken is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, teaching Complex Litigation.
Ken occasionally appears on the Law Business Insider, which is broadcast nationwide on CBS affiliates.
Ken recently served as a “scoring judge” for the March 2007 American Association for Justice Student Mock Trial Advocacy Competition.
Ken was a recent Round Table Participant on Class Action Issues at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the West Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.

State Court Admissions

Illinois Supreme Court and courts throughout the State of Illinois
Ken has practiced in various state courts, including those in New York, Tennessee, Florida, New Mexico, California and Connecticut.

Federal Court Admissions

U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois
U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
With so many of the firm’s cases pending in jurisdictions across the country, Ken has also been admitted to practice pro hac vice in United States District Courts of New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maryland, South Dakota, Connecticut, Ohio, California and Wisconsin.

Academic Background

J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1980
B.A., summa cum laude, Washington University, 1977