Rule 1.276.Arrangements for attorney's fees and expenses

Before a court can find, under rule 1.263(2), that a class is adequately protected, it needs to know how the litigation is being financed. Rule 1.276 requires the representative parties and their attorney, before the certification hearing under rule 1.262(1) or whenever else the court directs, to file -- jointly or separately -- a statement disclosing any amount paid or promised to them for their services or for the litigation's costs and expenses, and where that money comes from. They also have to produce or summarize any written or oral fee agreement with their attorney, and any agreement to share those amounts with anyone outside the immediate law firm -- not a partner, associate, or attorney regularly of counsel with the firm, but someone else entirely. If new arrangements come up later, the disclosure has to be updated right away.

Rule 1.276(2) addresses what happens when the representative parties or other available sources cannot cover the costs and expenses of the litigation. The court can authorize and control voluntary contributions solicited from class members, advances from the attorneys or others, or both -- all subject to reimbursement from whatever the class eventually recovers. The court can also order any funds contributed or advanced this way applied to costs taxed against the class in favor of the opposing party, keeping the financing arrangement under judicial oversight rather than leaving it to private agreement alone.