I have been fortunate enough to spend my entire legal career dedicated to the protection of the public. Whether it was through consumer advocacy on behalf of utility company ratepayers, targeting illegal price gouging in the pharmaceuticals industry, attacking corporate mismanagement and fraud on behalf of shareholders or litigating against corporate polluters who foul our land and poison our water, the underlying theme has always been the same: companies that take advantage of the public and behave irresponsibly should be taken to task and held responsible.”
Paul Novak has a distinguished career of prosecuting complex civil cases against corporate wrongdoers and came to Weitz & Luxenberg to manage the firm’s Detroit office and continue his practice of fighting irresponsible corporate behavior.
In the late 1980s, as an Assistant Attorney General in Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley’s office, Mr. Novak successfully attacked an illegal $1.5 billion transaction by Michigan’s largest public utility, Consumers Power Company, and saved hundreds of millions of dollars for Michigan’s ratepayers.
Mr. Novak is a national leader in litigation against the pharmaceutical industry. He led an $80 million case on behalf of all fifty State Attorneys General that attacked anticompetitive “pay for delay” deals that increase the price of prescription drugs and delay generic products from coming to market. And he has participated in several additional cases and obtained several hundred million dollars in recoveries on behalf of injured consumers and third-party payers who are overcharged by pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Novak was appointed, by several state and federal courts, as lead counsel for plaintiffs in class action cases involving antitrust violations and in shareholder class actions. He has tried numerous antitrust and environmental enforcement cases to judgment and was awarded the Frank J. Kelley Distinguished Trial Advocacy Award for his service in the Michigan Attorney General’s office. His antitrust work has been featured in the National Law Journal on the “Plaintiff’s Hot List”. He is routinely recognized as one of Michigan’s Super Lawyers, as a Best Lawyer in DBusiness Magazine, as AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell, and as one of the top plaintiff antitrust lawyers in the nation by the Global Competition Review’s Who’s Who in International Competition Law. He was the former division head of the Special Litigation Division in the Michigan Attorney General’s office with responsibility for all antitrust, securities regulation, and utility ratepayer consumer advocacy matters. And he served as the City Attorney of Lansing.
He sits on the State Bar of Michigan’s U.S. Courts Committee. Among dozens of legal and civic organizations, Mr. Novak served as a member of the:
- State Bar of Michigan’s Antitrust, Franchising and Trade Regulation Section (former chair)
- National Association of Attorneys General Midwest Antitrust Enforcement Task Force (former chair)
- National Association of Attorneys General Prescription Drug Pricing Task Force
- Michigan Attorney General’s Litigation Advisory Board
- Lansing City Council
- Lansing Economic Development Corporation
He clerked at the Federal Trade Commission Regional Office in Atlanta, Georgia, the Michigan Public Service Commission in Lansing, Michigan, and as a Lyndon Baines Johnson Congressional intern while working on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
