Class Action Lawyers Lobby Against Multidistrict Case Revamp

Class action attorneys are lobbying for changes to a draft rule on multidistrict litigation that they say could upend decades of best practices used to manage their cases.

Lawyers say the rule, meant to help judges sort through initial stages of litigation that combines similar lawsuits from various parts of the country, is clearly targeted at the complexity of mass tort MDLs rather than at class action MDLs, which commonly pop up in antitrust, data breaches, privacy, and human rights.

Multidistrict litigation with class action allegations made up roughly two-thirds of all pending MDLs as of Sept. 30, according ...