Comment: The Impact to Date of the Lead Plaintiff Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

Professor Fisch begins her very interesting paper by suggesting that Congress’
goal in passing the lead plaintiff provisions of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act (the “Reform Act”)’ was “to transfer control of [securities class action] litigation away from lawyers and back to clients.’ 2 1 am generally hesitant to speculate
about the reasons why Congress took any given action and I am particularly hesitant
to attribute Congressional adoption of the Reform Act to any single motive. My
impression is that the members of Congress who supported the Act were moved by a
variety of motives, ranging from the desire of some to eliminate all private securities
litigation to the desire of others to curry favor with particular groups of constituents or
with past or potential campaign contributors. It is striking, nonetheless, that Congress
not only passed the Reform Act, but passed it over President Clinton’s veto.’