What are the signs of an unfair settlement or improper representation?
A. There has been a great deal of criticism of class action litigation in the news in recent years. Much of the criticism is unjustified. A good deal of the criticism focuses on the fees that lawyers receive for representing a class in such litigation. The most vocal opponents of class action litigation are insurers who are required to pay covered claims as a result of the litigation, or the wrongdoers involved in the underlying misconduct. The truth of the matter is that the lawyers who represent a class will often recover in fees an award many times greater than the compensation received by any given class member; however, the total collective allocations to the class in a proper settlement are invariably many times the fee awarded to lawyers. Without a means to sue wrongdoers for cheating people out of small sums, we would all be at the mercy of small time cheats. No one person cheated out of a hundred dollars can find a lawyer to represent him. Several thousand people cheated out o
There has been a great deal of criticism of class action litigation in the news in recent years. Sometimes the criticism is justified; often, it’s not. A good deal of the criticism focuses on the fees that lawyers receive. Many times, the most vocal opponents of class action litigation are insurers who are required to pay covered claims as a result of the litigation, or the wrongdoers involved in the underlying misconduct. It’s true that lawyers who represent a class will often receive fees many times greater than the compensation received by any given class member. But the total money recovered on behalf of the class in a proper settlement is invariably many times the fee awarded to lawyers. Without a means to sue wrongdoers for cheating people out of small sums, we would all be at the mercy of small time cheats. Generally, no one person cheated out of $100 can find a lawyer to represent him. But several thousand people cheated out of $100 each have a powerful collective wrong that at
