John Coffee observed twenty years ago that"[h] igh agency costs" inherent in class action
litigation" permit opportunistic behavior by attorneys" and,"[a] sa result, it is more accurate to …

Class actions are a useful means for achieving economies of scale in litigation, facilitating
the prosecution of claims that would be uneconomic to litigate individually, and …

The preferred way of handling mass tort lawsuits in the federal courts has long been for the
Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation (" JPML") to transfer and consolidate the cases in a …

In the conventional class action lawsuit, each member of a large group of dispersed persons
possesses a legal claim of such small value that the cost of liquidating it through litigation …

The last decade has seen an explosion of employment discrimination class action lawsuits
that have been resolved through record breaking settlements. The best known of these …

When the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure first provided for a class action vehicle, hopes
were high that individuals would be able to act collectively to hold corporations liable for …

Introduction Class actions face a crisis of governance. The form of governance provided by
Rule 23, governance by representative parties, is both vague in theory and ignored in …

Americans love strongly held positions. We marvel at the debates over whether Certs is a
candy mint or a breath mint. We delight in the roaring battles over whether the true virtue of …

Everyone agrees that class action lawyers must be kept in check, but no one knows quite
how to do it. The goal is to identify procedural rules that will encourage plaintiffs' attorneys to …

This Article evaluates whether objectors to class action settlements add to the efficiency and
fairness problems that plague the modern class action. Objector participation can take the …