Totally disagree. The class member bought the actual product that wasn’t made properly. Or paid the late fee that he shouldn’t have paid. etc. etc.
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In a class action, the class member does not have a meaningful opportunity to bargain with his or her attorney.
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Personally, I feel that courts and legislatures should scrutinize class-action settlements more carefully.
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Attorneys are fiduciaries and officers of the court. The morals of the marketplace do not apply.
This is particularly true when the client does not have any meaningful ability to negotiate with his or her attorney. Just MHO.
By the way, I’m an attorney who does a lot of contingency fee work. I do it to make money and hope to make a lot of money. But ultimately, my job is to serve my clients’ interests.
Sorry if this sounds self-aggrandizing or preachy.
I think this thread illustrates that there should be a futures market in lawsuits: that is, you can buy into a lawsuit by purchasing shares! This would allow those of us who arent interested in penny-ante coupons to invest in bigger things. Think about it-the class counsel lawyers have already committed the crime of champerty-they have no direct interest in the case-cept the money theu will get. So, let’s have a markey where future awards can be bought and sold. In this way, an intelligent investor can decide the merits of a given class-action lawsuit, and chose to invest or not. Also, the lawyesr should be required to purchase the futres as well-so they can share in the cheesey payouts that most of these things merit!
Well, I’m off to check my winnings in the ASBESTOS INSULATION CAL, and the Compact Disc OVercharge CAL, and the ,etc.,etc…
I have never done a piece of contingency work in my life. But I can tell you that if I were to enter into such an endeavor, the contingency agreement with my client would spell out when I could settle the case – that is, if the defendant offered X, I’d be permitted to accept that. And if the client and I couldn’t agree on that, then I wouldn’t do the work. This might not prevent my interest in getting paid becoming at least a little adverse as to my client’s interest in being made whole, but at least it would represent an agreement he made ahead of time with, presumably, eyes open.
I expect a similar agreement is made between the would-be class counsel and the named plaintiff, who is typically treated much better than “all others similarly situated.”
The problem you’re talking about comes along because, as lucwarm correctly points out, there is little chance for each class member other than the named plaintiff(s) to negotiate meaningfully with class counsel. Therefore, they are in a position of taking whatever settlement is thurst at them (and approved by the court, I might add) or opting out of the class.
But that last sentence is the one area in which they can make a meanignful statement. If the settlement is so onerous as the constitute absolutely no benefit, or a worse benefit than they might receive elsewhere, why in heaven’s name would they refuse to opt out? Why wouldn’t some other, less greedy lawyer come along and negotiate a better deal? In other words, why do you assume the results of the marketplace are flawed?
Yes, I agree - in a class action, the interests of the lawyer and the class-member client are potentially divergent, if not outright adverse. But this is the nature of the class action. The attorney was motivated primarily by the chance of getting paid. There is an independent judicial review of the settlement, and that judge has every right to refuse a settlement on the grounds of excessive fees to counsel. The class memebrs have every right to opt out. It’s hard to picture this as inherently coercive.
Yeah, I’ve been in a pissy mood lately. I apologize for all the juvenile garbage.
Actually, that’s not how the game is played. Milum was challegned to give a cite to back up his assertions, he did so. It is now beholden on all who doubted his word to either
apologize and admit he was right and they were wrong
discover a logical or factual error in the cite that invalidates it
come up with an equally convincing counter-cite of their own
Did I miss something, Evil Captor? I see a citattion that addresses attorney donation of money to politicians of both political parties. I don’t see any cite that purports to prove attorney colusion in price-fixing.
There is no “logical or factual error” in his cite, so far as I’m aware. It just fails to address the point.
Your entire post is made moot’s by Cheesesteak’s assertion that Firestone lost $1.6 billion on their tire fiasco prior to the class action lawsuit, which let’s face it, is small change in relation to $1.6 billion.
If the natural consequences of their actions so greatly outweighs the losses incurred by a class action suit, then the suit is pointless and serves only one purpose – enriching the lawyers.
I was under your impression that you were also asking for more logic from milum wrt the issue of attorney donations, since that was the cite you quoted in your post.
Here’s the thing: I checked out that site and got confused. Why are lawyers and lobbyists grouped together? Are they including donations made on behalf of clients?
I did a couple google searches and couldn’t find anything else.
Based upon the site, I’m willing to concede the possibility that lawyers and law firms donate more money to politicians than other industries. But I don’t have the energy or inclination to take the discussion any further. So go ahead and claim victory (at least on that point).
By your description, it would appear to be a rare case where there’s room for a second lawyer to form a second class and have a chance at recouping his investment of time and money.
Now I’ve been in a few of these classes, so let me just go over the ground from the ant’s-eye view. The first I ever found out that I was in such a class was when I received the notice of the proposed settlement. I had a fairly limited time to choose whether to stay in or opt out. I had no way of communicating with other class members to find out whether others were interested in opting out, or whether I was the only one who both disliked the settlement and actually gave a flip one way or the other. And without being able to organize and communicate with fellow members of my class, what’s the chance that opting out would do anybody any good? Approximately zip.
The realistic choices are: stay in the class and receive a share of the pseudo-settlement, or opt out and not even get that.
I don’t see why this has to be ‘the nature of the class action’, or why the attorney’s desire for lucre should be the source of any divergence of interest here. The percentage of the take received by the lawyer isn’t my issue; even if he gets 99% and the class divides a measly 1%, if their payoffs are equivalent in kind, then their interests will be in tandem. If the attorney does better for the class, he’ll do better for himself, and vice versa.
To use your bus analogy, I’m not trying to drive from the back of the bus, but I’d like to know that the driver and I are going in the same direction, even if he gets from Chicago to New York, and we passengers only make it as far as Gary, Indiana. (We’ve got a relativistic bus here. I can deal with that if you can. :)) The problem with these coupon settlements is that while both driver and passengers want to go east, the driver can send the passengers south while only the driver goes east.
Here is a memorandum (.pdf file) from Judge Bartle of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It concerns an interim award of attorney fees in the fen-phen class action. It awards more than $153 million to a number of firms, yet that will not be the final amount. It covers how the amounts were calculated and deals with objections to it.