A soaring number of wage-and-hour lawsuits eclipsed the number of federal securities class actions filed in 2007, according to separate sources.

o The Stanford Law School Class Action Clearinghouse reported that 176 federal securities fraud class actions were filed in 2007.

o Separately, Littler Mendelson, a national employment and labor law firm–in a report published in April 2008, “Total Wage and Hour Compliance: An initiative to end the Wage and Hour Class Action War”–reported that the number of wage-and-hour class actions filed in the federal courts more than doubled from 2001 to 2006.

o The pace is not slowing, the law firm said, estimating that 1,257 wage-and-hour-related class actions were filed nationwide from Oct. 1, 2007 to March 28, 2008.

o The report said there were 1,655 employment law class actions in total filed nationwide in that time period–1,147 in federal court, and 508 in state court–estimating that over 75 percent were wage-and-hour related.

o California leads the nation in employment class actions filed with 544 from Oct. 1, 2007 to March 28, 2008, Littler said in its April 2008 report, which also noted that 57 percent–311 out of the 544–could be identified as wage-and-hour-related cases.

o Florida, with a population of roughly half of California's, ranks first in employment class actions on a per-capita basis, Littler said, noting 533 filed in Florida during the same time period, but without estimating the percentage of wage-and-hour actions among these.

o The Littler report said its numbers “are a minimum, as state court reporting systems are only gradually moving online and becoming more comprehensive.”

o Analyzing workplace class actions for 2007 in a January 2008 report, the Chicago law firm Seyfarth Shaw, which defends employment cases, reported that FLSA collective actions pursued in federal court produced more 2007 rulings than either actions of discrimination or actions under the ERISA.

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