The National Law Journal spoke to Chairman Christopher J. Keller about U.S. plaintiffs firms expanding into Europe.

As many European jurisdictions as well as courts in the United Kingdom are adopting group action models in areas ranging from antitrust and securities to consumer and environmental litigation, some U.S. firms are moving to get a piece of the pie.

“It is important to have local allies,” Labaton Keller Sucharow chairman Christopher J. Keller told NLJ.  It is not as simple as exporting U.S. litigation models to European or U.K. jurisdictions.  “U.S. lawyers coming in often meet a wall of skepticism.”

The big takeaway: “The wall between the U.S. approach and the European approach to litigation—with some minor breaches—is largely intact,” Keller said.  Culturally, people in the EU do not favor an overly aggressive way to resolve disputes.