Since the 1960s, the class action lawsuit has been a powerful tool for holding businesses accountable. Yet years of attacks by corporate America and unfavorable rulings by the Supreme Court have left its future uncertain. In this book, Brian T. Fitzpatrick makes the case for the importance of class action litigation from a surprising political perspective: an unabashedly conservative point of view.

Conservatives have opposed class actions in recent years, but Fitzpatrick argues that they should see such litigation not as a danger to the economy, but as a form of private enforcement of the law. He starts from the premise that all of us, conservatives and libertarians included, believe that markets need at least some rules to thrive, from laws that enforce contracts to laws that prevent companies from committing fraud. He also reminds us that conservatives consider the private sector to be superior to the government in most areas. And the relatively little-discussed intersection of those two beliefs is where the benefits of class action lawsuits become clear: when corporations commit misdeeds, class action lawsuits enlist the private sector to intervene, resulting in a smaller role for the government, lower taxes, and, ultimately, more effective solutions.

Offering a novel argument that will surprise partisans on all sides, The Conservative Case for Class Actions is sure to breathe new life into this long-running debate.

Brian T. Fitzpatrick is the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School. He graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School and with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a Special Counsel to US Senator John Cornyn.

— Law & Social Inquiry

— Leonard Leo, former executive vice president, Federalist Society

— Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, University of California Berkeley School of Law

— Ken Starr, former US Solicitor General and Court of Appeals Judge

— John Cornyn, US Senator, Texas

— Religious Studies Review