Don Frederico: When I was there because I had worked on that toxic tort environmental case, I really started doing a lot of environmental litigation. In one of those cases, it was a case against the entire oil industry. We represented one big oil company and it was a Class Action. I didn't know much about class actions, but we would have meetings of all the lawyers across the country who were representing all the oil companies and I was impressed that how much these guys knew about class actions and how interesting that whole field was. And I decided, I think I want to focus my practice on doing Class Action defense work, and that's what I've been doing for more than 20 years.
Joe Miller: So when you made that pivot or started focusing, how many years into your profession were you roughly.
Don Frederico: At that point, I was about 17 or 18 years in.
Joe Miller: That's quite a bit.
Don Frederico: Yeah. I was doing general commercial litigation before that and environmental litigation, but yeah. Yeah. So it was recognizing. And then I had an opportunity that I just seized upon.
I had a partner in our Boston office. Who was representing a group of pharmaceutical companies in the diet drug litigation. Fenfen people might remember that.
Joe Miller: I do.
Don Frederico: And there were a large number of Class Actions in that case, it was in the federal court in Philadelphia, and we were one of the lead national firms for this one group of pharmaceutical companies. There were class certification hearings coming up. And somebody had to argue these very important motions. And my partner said, do you want to do it? He knew I wanted to develop an expertise in class actions. And I said, Oh yeah! So, I ended up being lead national class certification council for this group of pharmaceutical companies which really helped me develop both experience and branding in my area.