Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4) requires that the representative parties – the class representatives and their counsel – will adequately protect the interest of the class. Relatively few class-action decisions turn on the adequacy of class counsel, but in a post on BakerHostetler’s Employment Class Action Blog, Greg Mersol highlights a recent decision in which a class was denied certification because the attorneys were not adequate class representatives under Rule 23.
Bottom line: adequacy matters.