Originally Posted by
3Cforme
A lot of which is cynical fiction.
Fees aren't paid up front - they are contingent. An unsuccessful case yields nothing. Peer-reviewed academic studies covering hundreds of cases point to a median value of ~25% of recovery going to attorneys. Fees are approved by the courts. Judges can allow a % or they can approve hours and an hourly rate. As for small individual consumer payouts, 75% of something is better than 100% of nothing. In a fairly weak consumer protection environment (look at air carrier contracts of carriage) class action suits are one of the few defenses available to consumers.
The risk created by transferring personal information (Name, address, phone, email, etc) far exceeds any benefit to the consumers. If lawyers want a cut of the companies ill gotten gains, then the torts should just be published on the internet and potential class members can opt in if they so choose. That way the privacy of the parties who do not want any part of the tort can be preserved.
Furthermore the class action administrators (for example: Rust Consulting), must be able to provide the name of the defendant, and what service I allegedly purchased. If they cannot show evidence that defendant X claims that they sold me item Y, then the list of class members has been forged. As stated before, I did not even live in the USA during the period cited in the tort. There is no possible way that I purchased carriage on a qualifying flight. It is very clear that they take shortcuts, and just randomly pull names of mailing lists rather than bothering to hire the staff required to aggregate names from actual ticket purchase records. What does Rust Consulting care? Nobody looks over their shoulders so why do they care if more than 50% of the names on the list are not actually customers of the defendants, and most of the actual customers do not appear on the list of class members.