Mark Pifko, a Shareholder at Baron & Budd, specializes in the prosecution of high-profile class action cases against multi-national corporations. Mr. Pifko's cases have addressed corporate fraud and wrongdoing across a broad array of business areas, including in the financial services, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries. Since joining the Los Angeles office of Baron & Budd in 2011, Mr. Pifko's efforts have led to the return of significant sums of money to victims and have affected changes in corporate behavior.
Prior to joining Baron & Budd, Mr. Pifko spent nearly a decade representing some of the world's largest companies in high-stakes litigation. In connection with that corporate defense work, Mr. Pifko worked with advertising agencies who helped sell his clients' products and services, and Mr. Pifko recalls that the tag line for one such agency was, “œwhile life is busy happening, we get people to do stuff!” Corporations spend billions of dollars a year to get people to buy their offerings. But when things go wrong, where can injured parties go to get corporations to “œdo stuff,” like refund money and stop unlawful practices from continuing? In 2010, Mr. Pifko left his position at a top-ranked D.C.-based international law firm so that he could devote his entire practice to his passion “” representing the interests of plaintiffs. Mr. Pifko is a resource to get recalcitrant companies to make things right.
Mr. Pifko believes class action and mass-tort lawsuits provide an important way for people to protect themselves from powerful corporations. Instead of one person taking on a billion-dollar company, complex litigation allows groups of people to fight back with a collective voice. In addition to his litigation work, Pifko has been called upon to be a speaker on class action topics at legal industry conferences. Mr. Pifko is also a talented writer whose articles on class action law and consumer advocacy have been published in California Lawyer magazine and the Daily Journal newspaper.
Since 2017, Mr. Pifko has devoted a substantial amount of time working on litigation related to the opioid crisis. Mr. Pifko is part of a team of lawyers who represent approximately 700 cities and counties and nine states in cases brought against manufacturers, distributors, and dispensers of opioid products. A September 13, 2019 article published in the Washington Post, titled Inside the Drug Industry's Plan to Defeat the DEA, discussed evidence uncovered by Mr. Pifko in connection with his deposition of the pharmaceutical distribution industry trade association known as the Healthcare Distribution Alliance. Additionally, Mr. Pifko was part of a team who, in March 2019, successfully obtained an order disqualifying an international law firm and a former U.S. Attorney from the bellwether cases brought by Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and the City of Cleveland.
