Mr. Abraham Rappaport

"South Florida has a high proportion of elderly residents who fall victim to financial and other types of scams," says Abraham Rappaport, a partner at the Boca Raton office of New York-based Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerachi office, the granddaddy of class-action firms. His 145-attorney firm opened its Boca office two years ago because of the explosion of class-action cases in South Florida.

"We came down here because of the number of class-action cases we were seeing in Florida, particularly South Florida," says Abe Rappaport, a partner at the Boca office.

Abraham RappaportMilberg Weiss
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Abraham Rappaport

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ABRAHAM RAPPAPORT is a graduate of the State University of New York at Empire State College (B.A. 1983) and of the Rutgers University School of Law, Newark (J.D. 1986).From 1986 to 1992 Mr. Rappaport was associated with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in New York City, where he concentrated on corporate and federal securities law litigation, principally in connection with merger and acquisition transactions, as well as complex civil RICO and general commercial litigation.

In 1992, Mr. Rappaport joined Morris and Morris in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was a partner through July 1998.At Morris and Morris, Mr. Rappaport exclusively represented plaintiffs in shareholder class and derivative actions arising under the federal securities, antitrust and RICO statutes, and under state statutory and common law.Mr. Rappaport played a prominent role in successfully prosecuting claims on behalf of investors in numerous major cases in both federal and state courts, including In re Salomon Treasury Litigation, (S.D.N.Y.) (securities fraud and antitrust claims settled for $100 million); In re Columbia Gas Securities Litigation, (D.Del.) (securities fraud claims settled for $36.5 million); In re Medical Care, Inc.Securities Litigation, (N.D. Tex.) (securities fraud claims settled for $60 million); and In re Paramount Communications, Inc.Shareholders Litigation, (Del. Ch.) (injunction of initial proposed merger resulted in consummatio n of merger at a per share price hundreds of millions of dollars higher than original offer).

Mr. Rappaport served as Counsel to the New York State Governor's Judicial Nominating Committee in 1989.Mr. Rappaport is a member of the Bars of the States of Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Florida, the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the District of Delaware, the Southern District of Florida, and the Court of Appeals for the Third, Sixth and Eleventh Circuits.

• I own XYZ stock; am I part of the securities class action lawsuit?

A: I'd start by contacting lawyer Abraham Rappaport, who served as co-lead counsel for shareholders in the class-action suit.Rappaport is a partner at Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach in the Boca Raton, Fla., office.The telephone is (561) 361-5000.Or you can contact the firm's San Francisco office at (415) 288-4545.

Thousands of shareholders have filed claims for their share of the settlement, and the last claims must be postmarked by today.

Here's the background on this case:

And Milberg's other partner in Boca Raton, Abraham Rappaport, is also leaving the firm, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Reached in New York, Milberg Weiss co-founder Melvyn Weiss refused to comment about Rappaport's possible departure.But he confirmed Vianale's departure.

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Rappaport could not be reached for comment.Several calls to his office were not returned before deadline.

Weiss said Jan. 9 that he has "a lot of confidence" in his firm's Boca Raton office, which has seven attorneys.

"Harris has objected to the fee allocated to him and, despite co-lead counsel's efforts to negotiate with him and his attorney, has repeatedly threatened to sue co-lead counsel in Pennsylvania state court if not paid 90 percent of his claimed ... $159,800," according to the complaint signed by Milberg Weiss partner Abraham Rappaport.
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Rappaport declined further comment.