Describing Mr. Lerach's “outsized personality,” which was on display in the video, panel moderator John McCarrick, a partner for Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, asked what impact losing such a high-profile representative has had on the securities class-action plaintiffs' bar.

Boris Feldman, a partner with Wilson Sonini Goodrich & Rosati, noted that back when U.S. senators debated the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, they pointed to Mr. Lerach as the demon to be beaten down as they crafted the law–a measure intended to raise pleading standards and other hurdles for bringing securities fraud suits to federal court as soon as stock prices fell for public companies.

“But we've seen since that the level of talent in the plaintiffs' bar is deep and broad,” he said, adding that, to some extent, “the power has shifted from an individual lawyer with a strong personal following to institutions”–referring to a consequence of the law that put institutional investors, such as pension funds, in the role of lead plaintiff. (The act specifies that plaintiffs with significant financial interests must serve as leads.)

“As someone who defends companies and has to settle cases,” he said that “in some ways it was easier” dealing with Mr. Lerach or other partners of his former firm–Milberg Weiss–than with a pension fund. The funds, he added, operate with a high “level of outrage” over fraudulent actions of defendants in particular cases.

Joseph Grundfest, a law professor from Stanford Law School, said “attorneys with egos” are actually at odds with “the best interests of the plaintiffs' class-action bar as an industry.” He explained that “the optimal public position of the industry is not about [the] lawyers, but about the merits of our cases. It's about the need to do justice [and] to vindicate the rights of poor, innocent shareholders.”

Asked about the impact of this month's elections, Mr. Feldman suggested a similar theme will emerge in the appointment of judges at the district court level, where most cases are fought. Judges are likely to be more open to class actions, tending to “see the side of the little man” and not the view of the business community. “It will be a good period for plaintiffs and a bad period for defendants and insurers,” he said.

Both panelists also said lawmakers will likely turn their attention to reforming securities litigation in a way that favors plaintiffs.

“In the first 100 days” of President-elect Barack Obama's administration “you'll probably see the key plaintiffs' priorities get through Congress–probably led by [Vice President Joe] Biden,” Mr. Feldman said, predicting there would be an attempt to legislatively expand the scope of aiding-and-abetting cases.

It will be as if “Central Bank [and] Stoneridge never happened,” said Mr. Grundfest–referring to prior Supreme Court decisions limiting the scope of such cases.

In addition, he said, pleading standards will likely be lowered. “You won't need a 'strong inference' of intent to defraud investors anymore. You'll just need a mild aroma,” he said–referring to specific language of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act requiring a complaint alleging securities fraud to state “with particularity facts giving rise to a strong inference that the defendant acted with the required state of mind.”

Mr. Feldman said the meltdown in the credit markets will be “the poster child” for lawmakers to get changes in class-action law relating to inferences and damages. A lot of “speed bumps” that plaintiffs have had to deal with will be eliminated, he predicted.

As to the impact of eliminating Mr. Lerach's influence, another panelist–Vaughn Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California–said Mr. Lerach had a lot of “accessories” to his crimes, suggesting that judges and defendants, by not performing their jobs adequately, helped plaintiffs' attorneys, and that they still do.

“The judges are a problem in these cases. They haven't scrutinized the settlements… as closely as they should,” he said.

“We all like settlements. Cases go away. They clear dockets. So judges are very receptive to settlements and don't scrutinize them carefully,” Judge Walker added.

In addition, he said, if the defense bar “can't blow the case out of the water at the pleading stage, they proceed immediately to mediation and attempt to settle the case. So you don't have the facts coming out the way you would in traditional litigation.”

Mr. Lerach and others “were operating in an environment where they could do a lot of things without the scrutiny that would ordinarily be there–and that condition has largely not changed,” he said, also suggesting that institutional investors have not taken a more prominent role.

He said there are “relatively few cases” where “you have large, responsible institutional investors, who are sophisticated and able to monitor litigation, to ride herd on the lawyers and make important decisions about when to settle and for how much.” Exceptions are cases of accounting restatements or serious fraud, such as the Enron case, he and the other panelists said.

“In the vast majority of cases, things have not changed from the way they existed prior to the Reform Act. Plaintiffs' lawyers are still very much in the driver's seat in these cases,” Judge Walker said.

Mr. Feldman noted that another type of lead plaintiff is emerging in many cases he's involved in–union locals or Taft-Hartley Funds, through which employees get health insurance and other benefits. “You have to wonder what's in it for them,” he said.

“It's conceivable that…passing money…to an individual that brought a lot of suits for you might be replaced by doing favors for small pension funds that have a history of corruption,” he said, suggesting that the type of scheme that got Mr. Lerach a prison term might not be gone for good.

Mr. Grundfest seemed to suggest that another scheme might be emerging when he described findings he uncovered about confidential witness statements, which are often included in securities case pleadings.

While it's difficult to find a lot of information about these situations because many cases are under seal, the professor said he has discovered at least 100 confidential witnesses repudiating their statements when they were deposed as cases moved forward.

They may say, “That's not what I ever said,” or, “I had a phone call from a guy. He didn't identify himself as an investigator, and I couldn't possibly have said that because I have nothing to do with these functions at the corporation,” according to Mr. Grundfest.

The reasons for this could range from “the most innocent in the world to the most nefarious,” he added. A witness may have forgotten or misunderstood an investigator, he suggested.

But when you have more than 100 instances of this occurring, he said, “you have an issue that goes to the credibility of the process in a way that's not dissimilar from the video we saw.”

In the video, Mr. Lerach said “we were not voluntarily giving away a part of our legal fees because we wanted to. We weren't a church or a charity. We were a profit-making institution. We did it to beat the competition. We did it because that's what was done in the field.”

Further justifying his actions, he said: “You have to make a judgment. Do you want meritorious cases to be brought and litigated or not? If they're not brought, and the plaintiff isn't compensated for bringing them, then justice will not be done. Wrongdoers will not be held accountable. Victims will not be compensated.”

John Degnan, vice chairman and chief operating officer of The Chubb Corp., who received the “PLUS1 Award” at the meeting in honor of his efforts to advance the image of the professional liability industry, said during a video excerpt, “Bill Lerach had nothing to do with the cleanup of corporate behavior.”

While there were clearly some cases of real corporate abuse prior to 2002, he added, that “does not justify criminal behavior by a lawyer who cloaks himself in the posture of a reformer, when in reality, he's simply using that wrongdoing to benefit himself.”

Mr. Lerach at a later point in the video said: “Sometimes you have to endure things that aren't great if you think there's a greater good. It may have been the ends justify the means. It may with the benefit of hindsight seem stupid or reckless. But when it was going on, nobody–and I mean nobody–ever thought what was going on was criminal in any way.”

Admitting that he and other members of his firm knew his actions were “ethically improper,” he also gave his views of ethic codes. “The fact of the matter is that ethical rules are written by lawyers at big law firms, and judges who came from big law firms–and they're written to create a legal environment that protects powerful interests. It's that simple. Legal rules exist to protect the rich and powerful in society. We were up against that,” he said.