This essay on the class action will be a chapter in the Procedural Law and Economics volume forthcoming from Edward Elgar. It reviews the law-and-economics literature on the class action, current as of 2008 (when I wrote the chapter). It discusses the benefits of large claim and small claim...

In May 2018 the Australian Law Reform Commission (“ALRC”) released a discussion paper on class action proceedings and third party litigation funders. It contained the proposal that the federal class action legislation should be amended to provide that all federal class actions should be...

The hallmark of Judge Posner's class action decisions is rigorous review to ensure that aggregate litigation serves the best interests of class members and does not unduly pressure defendants to settle. Although he championed class actions, especially as a way to provide efficient justice in...

The class action is controversial because the class attorney can litigate or settle the claims of the class members without their consent. Many scholars have turned to corporate law to address the potentially disloyal behavior of the class attorney. These scholars have used analogies to...

Prior research suggests that class membership is higher in opt-out models than in opt-in models. One of the main concerns with an opt-out model is that it causes a tension with the principle of party autonomy (litigant autonomy). This study explores this tension as well as whether an opt out...

A persistent concern with class actions is that the attorney will take advantage of the class members, conducting the litigation in a way that lines their own pockets at the class members’ expense. Holding an agent like an attorney accountable is always a problem, but it is especially dire in...

Class actions have been a feature of the American litigation landscape for over 75 years. For most of this period, American-style class litigation was either unknown or resisted around the world. Notwithstanding this chilly reception abroad, American class litigation has always been a central...

Class action litigation has generated a series of recent Supreme Court decisions imposing greater federal court supervision over the prosecution of collective injury claims. This group of cases raises the question whether class action waivers should be permitted on policy grounds. I examine the...

Over the past 25 years, class actions have emerged as a central feature of Canadian law. The conceptual heart of these class actions comes from the Ontario Law Reform Commission's 1982 Report on Class Actions, particularly in common law Canada. Drawing on the experiences of the early-adopter...