For the last six or seven years, a growing academic literature has put forward the argument that the primary justification for class actions is not to compensate absent class members, but to deter corporate wrongdoing. That justification has formed the basis of a number of arguments, from Professor Fitzpatrick’s proposal that class action attorneys earn

Last week, my post on the Ten Most Interesting Articles in 2011 got linked by Professor Alexandra Lahav at the fine Mass Tort Litigation Blog. She recommended my list of ten interesting but unwritten articles to students looking for notes topics, although she cautioned that 

I don’t agree with Mr. Trask’s assessment of my

Cardozo Law School professor Myriam Gilles has a new article in the latest issue of the DePaul Law Review, "Class Dismissed: Contemporary Judicial Hostility to Small-Claims Consumer Class Actions."

Provocative title aside, Gilles’s article is ostensibly about the ascertainability requirement. That said, it seems remarkably unconcerned with cases that actually discuss ascertainability. (For example