The Aggregate Settlement Rule and Ideals of Client Service

In this Essay, which was prepared for a 1999 Symposium on "Emerging Professional Responsibility Issues in Litigation," we reply to comments by Prof. Nancy Moore and attorney Steve Baughman Jensen on our articles, "I Cut, You Choose, The Role of Plaintiffs' Counsel in Allocating Settlement Proceeds, 84 Va. L. Rev. 1465 (1998), and "Mass Lawsuits and the Aggregate Settlement Rule," 32 Wake Forest L. Rev. 733 (1997). The Essay focuses on three issues: (1) the role of the aggregate settlement rule in encouraging lawyers to provide non-economic benefits to clients; (2) client competence and autonomy; and (3) the ethics of "damage averaging."