New Associate Fundamentals: Starting Strong

Mr. Burnside concentrates his complex civil litigation practice on matters related to class-action defense, consumer financial services, and commercial litigation. His more than two decades as an attorney is distinguished by significant victories in state and federal trial and appellate courts, particularly in actions challenging banking fees and services. Since successfully defending a pioneer class action lawsuit over insufficient funds (NSF) fee practices, Mr. Burnside has represented dozens of major financial service providers facing similar claims. He also has the rare experience of taking a financial services class action through a jury trial—and winning. With an established track record of securing outright victory or favorable settlements, Mr. Burnside has become the go-to attorney for consumer financial service providers facing class action lawsuits challenging fees charged by banks and credit unions. His leadership at DWT includes serving as the co-chair of the Class Action Defense group and co-chair of the Consumer Financial Services Litigation industry team, and he previously served as the firm's Deputy Chair of the Litigation Department, Executive Committee member, and on the firm's Share (Compensation) Committee. Mr. Burnside is a co-chair of the ABA's Annual National Institute on Class Actions, editor of the ABA Class Action Committee's Annual Survey of State Class Action Litigation, and a member of the American Law Institute.

Mr. Karon is a class-action trial attorney specializing in antitrust, consumer–fraud, and wage-and-hour litigation. He began his class-action career with Much Shelist Freed Denenberg Ament & Rubenstein, P.C. in Chicago. Mr. Karon now manages Karon LLC. He represents individuals in antitrust, consumer-fraud, wage-and-hour, and other class-actions and has represented domestic and international corporations in domestic and international antitrust class-action matters. Mr. Karon also defends corporations in consumer-fraud and antitrust class actions. He teaches consumer law at the University of Michigan Law School and The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and taught complex litigation at Columbia Law School. He has also been a lecturer in law at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Mr. Karon lectures on class-action law at multiple other law schools and serves on Loyola University Chicago School of Law’s Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies’ U.S. Advisory Board. For thirteen years, he chaired the ABA’s National Institute on Class Actions, for five years wrote a bimonthly column for Law360, was an editorial board member and contributing author to the ABA Litigation Section’s Class Actions Today-Jurisdiction to Resolution magazine, co-chaired the American Association of Justice Class Action Litigation Group, was a member of the Ohio Association of Justice Board of Trustees, and served as an editorial board member for the Ohio Academy of Justice’s Ohio Trial magazine. He has published several law review and bar journal articles on class-action topics, and he lectures nationally on class actions for the ABA and other bar associations.