Letter to Chicago Lawyer Magazine

To the editor:

Your June 2014 article “Cy pres success” contains a material misstatement of the law, when it implies that giving the class’s money to legal services organizations is invariably a “recognized approach to avoid granting awards to dubious organizations.” A number of decisions, including Ira Holtzman, CPA v. Turza, 728 F.3d 682 (7th Cir. 2013), have held such cy pres recipients to be inappropriate, rejecting the reasoning of the article for such distributions. 
One might overlook this statement as an excusable oversimplification of a complex area of the law, except that the author’s firm, McDermott Will & Emery, currently represents the National Legal Aid and Defender Association in at least two pending appeals (including one adverse to one of my clients, Oetting v. Green Jacobson, No. 13-2620 (8th Cir.)) where it is arguing for affirmance of cy pres awards against existing precedent. This conflict is nowhere disclosed in the article.
Very truly yours,
Theodore H. Frank
Center for Class Action Fairness
Washington, DC