This white paper traces the evolution, since the mid-1990s, of the role of securities class action in the evolution of institutional shareholder activism. Institutional investors have achieved a variety of sometimes far-reaching governance reforms that would have been otherwise impossible to achieve through more traditional means. Reforms have included increasing board openness and disclosure, election of directors, term limits for directors, shareholder participation in director nominations, outside auditing policies, executive compensation, stock option terms and many others.