Forbes profiles the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and its director Theodore H. Frank. William Baldwin explains how class action settlements work, and why Ted “is not a popular figure in the litigation bar.”
“The circuit split is still there,” Frank said. “They granted cert on it before and the Ninth Circuit is still signing off on some really appalling cy pres settlements.”
Frank, litigation director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, said the case would now go back to appellate judges in the Ninth Circuit, who would decide whether to kick it to the Northern District of California or decide the matter themselves. “The day of reckoning has been postponed,” he told MarketWatch. “But the writing is on the wall.”
“This decision simply delays the day of reckoning for this unfair practice,” said Ted Frank, Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a landmark case brought by the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) challenging an unfair class action settlement in which lawyers and their hand-picked universities and pet causes got millions while class members got nothing.
No one has a precise count of the class action settlements that include cy pres payments, and Frank said many may be included in quiet agreements that are never disclosed to the class. Federal courts dispose of about 275,000 cases a year, with 350 of them class actions.
"This case is really about attorneys selling out their clients," Holyoak told the Washington Free Beacon. "We are arguing that this is unfair, and this is an abuse of the class action system, and an abuse of the cy pres system."
The who, what, why, and how of CCAF's Supreme Court argument.
Enter Ted Frank and Melissa Holyoak, who objected to the settlement. They argued that the distribution of funds violates the federal rule for civil procedures that a class-action settlement be “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” The class counsel must also “fairly and adequately represent the interests of the class.”
"The fact that legal aid organizations do good things and could use the money doesn't justify the means," said Frank, who is also director of the Center for Class Action Fairness at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
