Attorney Ted Frank: Modern Day Robin Hood Fights for the Class

November 16th, 2010. By BrendaC

This new column at LawyersandSettlements.com looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we talk with Ted Frank, founder and president of the Center for Class Action Fairness…

Attorney Ted Frank: “I don’t like injustice.” 

You can think of attorney Ted Frank as the new Robin Hood of the litigation system. “I just don’t like injustice,” says Frank in a matter-of-a-fact kind of way late on a Friday afternoon speaking from his office in Washington, D.C. “Many class action settlements are negotiated for the benefit of the attorneys rather than the consumers they are representing.”

And when that happens, Ted Frank and the Center for Class Action Fairness, which he founded two years ago, will step in and as he says “balance the scales on behalf of class members.” 

 

Consider a California class action against Honda in which it was successfully argued that the car maker had overstated the per-gallon mileage achieved by its hybrids. The un-named members of the class, as agreed by Honda and the class action lawyers, would get a $500 coupon good toward the purchase of another Honda.

The class members would receive no money—instead they got a coupon which Frank describes as essentially a marketing device. “There was nothing stopping Honda from raising the price the car, the coupon was only good for six months and it applied to only Honda’s less popular vehicles,” explains Frank. “And before you could even use the coupon you had to agree to watch a 30 minute video about Honda fuel efficiency.” 

Meanwhile says Frank “the attorneys would get $4 million.”

The judge in the case threw out the settlement as a result of the intervention by the Centre for Class Action Fairness. The parties were forced to go back and come up with a deal that better serves the class members.

This is not happening in “smoked filled rooms where attorneys and defendants get together and figure out how to rip off the class,” say Frank. He describes it instead as a warped litigation system where everyone knows what the other side wants.  “There is sort of this Kabuki dance where they pretend to be negotiating on behalf the class and instead negotiate for the attorneys and not at all for the class.”

Of course, not every class action lawsuit is settled in such a way as to unreasonably favor the attorneys involved (see our prior post on the “fairness” of Tyson Chicken settlement compared to an Expedia settlement). But, according to Frank, unless the judge keeps a steely eye—or the Center for Class Action Fairness shows up to fight for class members—bad things can, and do, sometimes happen.

The Center is a non-profit public interest law firm. “Our budget is funded through a charitable foundation and generous benefactors. Some are anonymous donors,” says Frank, “and I like it that way—that way when I make a decision I am not worrying about who I might offend.”

“I saw a need, I saw a problem and I wasn’t satisfied with what I saw—and judges are all over the map in terms of the scrutiny they give class actions,” Franks says.

“I am hoping to move the law to better place,” says Frank about what motivates him to tackle a system that allows trial lawyers to help themselves to money that should be going to the members of the class.

Ted Frank is the founder and president of the Center for Class Action Fairness. Before that Frank was a fellow wit the American Enterprise Institute and director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest. He is also a member of the American Law Institute.

Tags: Center for Class Action Fairness, Lawyers, Lawyers Giving Back, Ted Frank

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