What is class action litigation? It is a legal procedure that is used to handle a law suit when many people have been injured by a common act or a set of actions. Class actions can be brought in either federal or state courts, though a recent federal law.

In the United States Federal Courts, class actions are governed by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Defendants can move class action lawsuits from state to federal courts by the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. A lawsuit becomes a class action when one or more plaintiffs who is called Lead Plaintiffs files a lawsuit claiming some kind of harm and then asks the court to certify the case as a class action.

What are the types of common cases in this area of litigation? They are law suits involving,

• Tobacco
• Asbestos
• Financial frauds
• Employment
• Pollution
• Breast implants
• Agent Orange (herbicide)

What makes the best class action attorneys? Previous experience in class litigation with a good track record and sufficient resources to do legal research are the main criteria that are looked into while choosing a lawyer for action class litigation.

One of the biggest advantages of class action litigation is that this type of law suit is an aggregation of a large number of individual claims. With smaller recoveries class action often makes the aggregated recovery worthy enough for the attorney's effort. Thus it increases the efficiency of litigation and also lowers the cost of litigation for the individuals involved.

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Labels: Federal Rules of Civil Procedures, FRCP, legal, litigation

With "legalese" on its way out, understanding the FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedures) is all set to become easier to understand.

On December 1st 2007, the restyling of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures will come into effect. The restyled rules are shorter and easier to read. They can be seen at http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/printers/109th/31308.pdf .

What changes are done to the style? Well here is a brief list of the different types of style changes done to the Federal rules;

• More concise
• More headings/subheadings
• More vertical lists
• Graphic hierarchy
• Avoiding intensifiers
• Elimination of outdated material
• Elimination of repetitious material
• Elimination of syntactic ambiguities
• Reorganization of jumbled provisions
• Breaking up sentences that are too long
• Minimizing cross references
• Minimize of-phrases
• The word "Shall" is being banished
• Avoiding legalese

To see the restyled rules on the US court website, go to http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/supct1106/CV_CLEAN_FINAL5-30-07.pdf

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Labels: amendments, Federal rules, FRCP, restyling