TCPA Class Actions Provide Backdrop for Illinois Courts’ Struggle with the Adequacy Requirement for Both Counsel and Plaintiff
TDR attorney Jordan Wilkow authored an article in the June 30 edition of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. The article examines conflicting views among Illinois state and federal courts regarding the severity of the adequacy requirement in class certification analysis as applied to both class counsel and the class plaintiff. Class actions brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which have become rather ubiquitous in Illinois in recent years, have provided the vehicle through which these views have been expressed. The article unpacks the tension between more ideological and more practical understandings of the adequacy requirement, and the notion of decertifying a class in the name of protecting it.