Article: Class-action titans ready to clash; 2 halves of plaintiff firm Milberg Weiss square off in New York; loss of clout.(News)

Byline: tommy fernandez

Over the course of nearly 30 years, they took on some of the world's largest corporations and dozens of lost causes, and managed to battle their way to more than $30 billion in settlements. Now the two kingpins of the class-action bar, Melvyn Weiss and William Lerach, face their toughest challengers ever-each other.

The co-chiefs of the largest and best-known plaintiffs' firm in the nation, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, dominated their corner of the legal industry for decades. Last year alone, they negotiated more than 60% of all the securities settlements in the country.

The two split up last summer into two ...

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