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This article examines contests among plaintiffs’ law firms to become lead counsel in securities fraud class actions. We study lead counsel appointments in all federal securities class actions from 2005 to 2016. Although the typical class action has several lead plaintiff motions, many of these motions will either withdraw or combine before the judge chooses the lead plaintiff and lead counsel. We find that law firms’ decisions to combine correspond primarily with the existence of relationships between law firms rather than case characteristics. When motions combine, the number of selected lead counsel typically increases. We also find that the correspondence of prior relationships between law firms on decisions to withdraw or combine does not increase with our proxies for the importance of synergies between law firms.
