John R. W. Cracken is an American trial lawyer and private investor based in Dallas, Texas. He is the managing partner of The Cracken Law Firm PC. In 2010, Cracken and his co-counsel filed 69,608 individual actions in Texas state court on behalf of 69,608 consumers against the consumer reporting agency, Trans Union. This was reported by some as the largest mass filing, by a single law firm, in American history. DLA Piper represented Trans Union in the mass filing and in 2011 the matter settled for approximately $27 million. In 2009, Cracken and his co-counsel filed three mass actions in New Mexico state court on behalf of 123 customers against certain directors, officers, and employees of then-bankrupt Eclipse Aviation Corp. The employees were represented by a variety of law firms, including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The matter was settled in 2012 for approximately $41 million. Cracken normally litigates class actions and mass actions.
Aside from the practice of law, Cracken and long-time private-investment partners John D. Harkey, Jr. and E. Gene Street, were heavily involved in the restaurant industry between 1997 and 2007. They acquired El Chico Restaurants, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ:ELCH), Spaghetti Warehouse, Inc. (formerly NYSE:SWH), along with a variety of private restaurant companies. The resulting company, Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc., owned and operated more than 100 full-service, casual-dining restaurants in America and abroad. In 2007 they employed more than 5,000 full and part-time employees. Harkey bought the majority of Cracken's and Street's shares in 2007.
Between 1999 and 2001, Cracken and co-founders Harkey and Christopher Hipp co-founded RocketLogix, Inc. (which later became RLX Technologies, Inc.). Hipp invented what is now known as the "blade server", which consolidated the components of a high-efficiency server on a single printed-circuit-board assembly. It enabled data centers to achieve a high density of servers in their Telco racks. Cracken and Hipp, as CEO and CTO respectively, raised approximately $60 million in venture capital for RLX. This included $40 million from noted financier and philanthropist George Soros. In order to bring RLX's blade server to market they recruited the then-recently retired executive team from the systems division of former Compaq Computer Corporation. In 2005, HP bought RLX and today the blade server is offered by many of the top server makers in the world, including Cisco, Dell, HP, and IBM.
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Background
Cracken was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, to Bill and Marilyn Cracken. In 1984, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. In 1987, he graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with a Juris Doctor Degree.
While attending the University's law school, Cracken competed in a number of national and intramural competitions. He won first place, best advocate and best brief in the University's Hildebrand (now Susman Godfrey) Moot Court Competition. Cracken was also a member of the University's National Moot Court Team and ATLA (now AAJ) Mock Trial Team, and the latter won the national championship in 2006. While attending the University, Cracken served as the president of Phi Eta Sigma and he was a member of Tau Beta Pi and the Texas Wranglers. The University named Cracken a Goodfellow in the University's Cactus Yearbook, named him on the Board of Directors the University Co-op, and he was also part of The Order of Barristers.
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Trial Lawyer
By the age of 30, Cracken was respected as a Texas trial lawyer. Between 1987 and 1997, Cracken won more than 30 verdicts and/or settlements in excess of $1 million for his clients. Between 1994 and 1995, he won approximately $9.5 million in an aviation-negligence action, $9.2 million in a medical-negligence action, $8.2 million in a well-publicized premises-liability action against Taco Bell Corp., $7.8 million in an aviation-negligence action, $5.4 million in an insurance-agent negligence action and $3 million, $1.5 million, and $1.4 million, respectively, in three product-liability actions. In 1996 Cracken went on to win a settlement for approximately $35.7 million in a class-action against Allstate Insurance Co and Farmers Insurance Group. The settlement was mediated by "pay czar" Ken Feinberg and included an appearance on key contested First Amendment issues by noted legal scholar Alan M. Dershowitz. A Texas state court approved the settlement, and at the related hearing Cracken presented the live testimony of noted legal scholars Samuel Issacharoff, Arthur R. Miller, and Charles M. Silver. The two insurers were accused of overcharging their policyholders by rounding up each policyholder's premium from the state-mandated rate to the nearest whole dollar. The settlement meant that up to 4.5 million past and present policyholders were eligible for a partial refund.
Cracken stated at the time that "This is a victory for consumers on two fronts, they are recovering $35 million in past overcharges and avoiding $30 million in future overcharges."
Cracken took a sabbatical from the practice of law between 1997 and 2009 to become a private investor.
He later returned to law in 2009 to pursue the Eclipse litigation. Since 2009, Cracken has entered into joint representations with more than a dozen of America's top trial and appellate law firms in the pursuit of class and mass actions. Among others, his co-counsel include Kimball R. Anderson, Jason J. Carter, Clayton A. Clark, C. Ronald Ellington, William P. Ferranti Jr., Benjamin Finley, Jim Frickleton, Kirk J. Goza, Francisco Guerra IV, Samuel Issacharoff, David J. Jaramillo, Joseph R. Johnson, James Lee Jr., Charles B. Molster III, Joseph A. Osborne, Richard M. Paul III, Martin J. Phipps, D. J. Powers, Adam Pulaski, Steven J. Rosenwasser, Charles M. Silver, Michael B. Terry, Ryan L. Thompson and Mikal C. Watts.
Private Investor
In 1997, Cracken took a sabbatical from the practice of law to acquire a mid-size company.
At that time, El Chico Restaurants, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ:ELCH) had engaged an investment bank to sell the company. El Chico's sales in 1996 were approximately $104.4 million. Cracken and Harkey recruited Street, who was known nationally as a respected restaurateur, to make a bid for El Chico. Cracken and his partners won the auction with a bid for approximately $65 million.
Next, Spaghetti Warehouse, Inc. (formerly NYSE:SWH) engaged an investment bank to sell the company. Spaghetti Warehouse's sales in 1998 were approximately $66 million. Again, Cracken and his partners made a bid and won the auction for approximately $62 million. Between 1997 and 2007, Cracken and his partners bought more than 100 full-service, casual-dining restaurant companies in America and abroad, including the Cantina Laredo, Cool River, El Chico, Good Eats, III Forks, Lucky's, and Spaghetti Warehouse brands. They operated their stores through Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Inc., employing more than 5,000 full and part-time employees and serving more than 25 million customers per year.
RLX Technologies
Cracken, Harkey and Hipp founded RLX Technologies in 1999. Cracken served as the CEO, and Hipp served as the CTO.
RLX was formed to prototype and eventually bring to market a new server platform now known as the "blade server". The name "blade server" came from the form of the server; it combined an ultra-efficient microprocessor made by noted Silicon Valley startup Transmeta (formerly NYSE:TMTA) and other efficient server components on a single printed-circuit-board assembly permitting RLX to stack blades in a Telco-rack-mounted cabinet materially increasing the server density per Telco rack. As the Internet exploded in 2009, the market demanded greater server density - to house the Internet's growing content - but, the market needed an ultra-efficient server platform to meet that demand. The "blade server" became an industry-standard platform by 2005, when HP bought RLX for an undisclosed sum.
Eclipse Aerospace
In 2009, Cracken and Mason Holland partnered with Mike Press, Roel Pieper, and Raul Segredo to form Eclipse Aerospace. They then went on to bid for the then-bankrupt Eclipse Aviation Corporation, which pioneered the very light jet category of general aviation with its Eclipse 500 (or E500) and won numerous awards in connection with the E500. Pieper was the former CEO of Eclipse Aviation. The company attempted an unsuccessful Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in November 2008, which was converted into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation procedure in February 2009. In the final Chapter 7 procedure, the assets of Eclipse Aviation were sold to Eclipse Aerospace. Cracken has since withdrawn from the partnership to lead a group of 123 customers in their tort claims against certain former directors, officers, and employees of Eclipse Aviation, and the resulting litigation returned Cracken to the practice of law.
Recognition
Since 1997, Cracken has been rated AV Preeminent by American publisher Martindale-Hubbell. In 2012, he was named a Top Rated Lawyer in Mass Tort Litigation and was recognized by Corporate Counsel and The American Lawyer.
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