Behind the prosecution of just about every major case of corporate and accounting fraud over the last decade, trial attorney William S. Lerach has loomed large. Lerach, who has prosecuted hundreds of corporate offenders – including Enron, Dynegy, Qwest, and WorldCom – will be the speaker at the Feb. 12 meeting of the University of California, San Diego Economics Roundtable.

Lerach, who according to The New Yorker magazine, “…has spent the last few decades suing corporate executives for lying to, cheating, and otherwise defrauding their shareholders,� has arguably become the country’s top class-action lawyer. His talk, “The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost: How the Big Accounting Firms and Corporate Interests Chloroformed Congress and Cost America’s Investors Trillions,� will be held from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at the UCSD Faculty Club.

While loathed in America’s corporate boardrooms, The Nation called Lerach “America’s Top Crime Fighter.� A San Diego resident, Lerach is a partner in the law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, LLP and works out of the firm’s San Diego office. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Litigation section committee on class actions and derivative skills. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Lerach serves as a faculty member of the American Law Institute, and has presided over the National Association of Securities and Commercial Lawyers (NASCAT), a national group of attorneys specializing in commercial and civil litigation.

In 1998, Lerach was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by President Clinton.

The UCSD Economics Roundtable, www.econ.ucsd.edu/roundtable, is sponsored by the UCSD Department of Economics in coordination with UCSD Extended Studies and Public Programs. To make reservations for the Feb. 12 roundtable breakfast, which costs $50 per person, contact Edie Munk at (858) 822-0510 or emunk@ucsd.edu. Members of the news media are invited to attend free of charge but must make reservations in advance.