Michael J. Dowd

A Lending Business, a Securities Case

The case that would define a career began on August 19, 2002, when investors filed suit alleging that Household International's stock had been artificially inflated by the concealment of deteriorating lending practices and loan quality. Nearly seven years later, on March 30, 2009, the case reached a federal jury in Chicago before Judge Ronald A. Guzmán — a destination the overwhelming majority of securities class actions never reach.

Getting there required Dowd's team to solve a problem of translation: connecting conduct inside a sprawling consumer-lending business to statements made in the securities market, then tracing the effect of corrective information on investor losses. Over six weeks, the plaintiffs offered evidence concerning predatory lending, delinquency reporting, portfolio quality, executive stock sales, public disclosures, and investor losses. Former chief executive William Aldinger took the stand. The plaintiffs also presented evidence concerning Household's loan portfolio and the destruction of documents.

Dowd led the courtroom work: choosing witnesses, organizing exhibits, examining testimony, responding to defense proof, and giving jurors a theory they could test against the record. He coordinated consumer-loan evidence, accounting material, market analysis, expert testimony, and the public pension funds' classwide proof so that each part answered the same question — what Household said, what was happening inside the business, and what the difference meant to investors.

On May 7, 2009, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff class, finding that Household and individual defendants collectively made seventeen false and misleading statements concerning the lender's financial results and operations in violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5.

Fourteen Years to a $1.575 Billion Fund

The verdict did not end the work. The Household record grew to include more than eighty-five depositions, approximately 130,000 hours of firm work, six weeks of jury evidence, and years of proceedings concerning reliance, eligible purchases, loss, and damages. The defense pressed post-trial motions, objections to tens of thousands of class-member claims, and an appeal to the Seventh Circuit, which returned certain questions concerning falsity, loss causation, and damages for retrial.

Dowd's answer was to prepare for a second trial at full scale. In 2009 the firm had moved twenty-one lawyers and legal professionals to Chicago; in May 2016, fourteen attorneys, forensic accountants, and legal professionals moved again. Maintaining the witness, exhibit, expert, and damages record through post-trial proceedings made another jury presentation credible and gave the investor class a concrete basis for measuring any proposed resolution. The $1.575 billion recovery was reached just hours before the second trial was scheduled to begin.

The district court granted final approval on October 20, 2016, establishing a court-supervised fund and allocation process for the class, whose court-appointed lead plaintiffs included the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 132 Pension Plan, PACE Industry Union-Management Pension Fund, and Glickenhaus & Company. The recovery stands as the largest securities fraud settlement in the Seventh Circuit and among the largest ever in a post-PSLRA securities case. The developed trial record then had to be converted into notice, claims review, allocation, and distribution before the recovery became usable relief.

Dowd's own description — "We fought like animals for the class" — captured the intensity of that fourteen-year progression. His work carried investors from internal lending records and market evidence through jury presentation, appellate defense, renewed trial preparation, negotiation, final approval, and the court-supervised claims process.

The proof had to show why the company's statements conveyed a materially different account from operational reality, establish the required state of mind, and connect corrective information to investor loss. A jury could evaluate that chain only after the lawyers translated lending systems, accounting choices, and market evidence into an intelligible account of how the events unfolded. Dowd's team connected the internal lending facts to reliance, damages, classwide proof, and the public statements investors received.

A Prosecutor's Trial Foundation

Before entering private securities practice, Dowd served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of California from 1987 to 1991 and again from 1994 to 1998, handling dozens of jury trials and earning the Director's Award for Superior Performance. The subject matter changed when he moved to investor litigation, but live testimony still required disciplined decisions about admissible proof, witness credibility, and the order in which jurors would receive the evidence.

A public company communicates through filings, earnings calls, internal forecasts, operating reports, and executive testimony. Dowd's trial method tests how those materials relate over time and reduces a sprawling corporate history to witnesses, exhibits, legal elements, and a damages model a factfinder can evaluate.

He later served as lead trial lawyer in the AT&T securities litigation in the District of New Jersey. The parties reached a $100 million resolution after two weeks of trial, when witnesses were already testifying and the evidentiary record was being tested in court. Dowd led trial preparation, witness examination, exhibit presentation, and negotiation during the live proceeding.

Dowd became a founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd — his name is on the door — and now serves as Of Counsel in its San Diego office. His securities work spans dozens of complex actions and billions of dollars in investor recoveries, including WorldCom ($657 million), AOL Time Warner ($629 million), and Qwest ($445 million), together with the uncommon experience of carrying a certified securities class through a jury verdict and the long process required to deliver a final class recovery. He brings that courtroom experience to case assessment, witness preparation, and settlement decisions after discovery has matured.

Different Corporate Records

American Realty Capital Properties required the investor team to connect accounting entries, offering documents, two mergers, public disclosures, statements by individual defendants, and alleged investor losses within one trial-ready record. A twenty-person team prepared for a six-to-eight-week trial before the litigation resolved, producing an aggregate recovery of approximately $1.025 billion; Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein approved the settlement in January 2020. Dowd's work centered on accounting proof, the order and relationship of documents, witness preparation, and the connection between each alleged misstatement and the represented investors' losses.

UnitedHealth arose from alleged stock-option backdating. The litigation produced a $925 million cash fund, cancellation of options held by a former chief executive, and corporate-governance measures. Dowd connected the internal decision, public disclosure, executive benefit, market response, and investor loss through the documents, witnesses, experts, and damages evidence admitted in the proceeding.

Under Armour investors secured a $434 million court-approved resolution as the matter approached a scheduled jury trial. The claims concerned sales practices, revenue growth, and public statements. A defined trial date allowed the parties to compare a cash proposal with the proof and risk that would soon reach the courtroom. Dowd worked on the resulting recovery.

Pfizer litigation over alleged off-label drug marketing and related disclosure produced a $400 million shareholder recovery. Drug regulation, marketing practices, reserves, public disclosures, and market reaction required a different technical vocabulary from Household's consumer-loan portfolio. Dowd carried the same trial craft across industries by identifying the corporate process behind each challenged statement and proving its consequence for investors.

The Prepared Record

Dowd’s Household and AT&T matters carried large securities records into the stages where witnesses, exhibits, experts, and jury issues had been defined.