Consumer class action lawsuits are among the most effective tools consumers have of protecting their power over the marketplace. When a large corporation does something bad which affects a lot of people, a class action lawsuit enables all the affected people to act with one voice.

Many lawsuits cannot become class action lawsuits, but those with many plaintiffs who have similar injuries and common legal issues may be combined and declared a class action lawsuit by a judge. Because forming numerous separate lawsuits into a class action is very efficient, it can ease the load on our judicial system and reduce the amount of time and money spent resolving consumer wrongs.

Class action lawsuits have kept many defective products off the market and penalized manufacturers who intentionally sold them. Class action lawsuits have rid our schools of dangerous asbestos and eliminated harmful contraceptive devices; they have made cars safer, products more reliable and given consumers a power to effect the market that they would not have otherwise.

Because of their power, many interest groups are at work to discredit class action lawsuits, the lawyers who file them and the plaintiffs who unite under them. Politicians scheme to enact laws to restrict them, while corporations seek means to undermine them, if not halt them altogether.

Yet class actions remain the best means possible for groups of people to effect change for the benefit of society and to achieve individual justice for themselves. If your injury and case is substantially similar to the legal issues involved in an existing class action lawsuit, you may be able to join the class.