Normally, when plaintiffs’ lawyers sue a publicly traded company, they have a “lever,” Udell would explain, which was that they could “keep the pressure up,” stoking media outrage to a point where it might begin to hurt the company’s stock price. That often meant it was cheaper for a public company to resolve a lawsuit than it would be to fight it—creating a powerful incentive to settle. But Purdue wasn’t a public company, Udell gloated. It was owned by the Sacklers, who were apparently unswayed by the bad publicity about their product. So “that’s a lever they don’t have over me.”
