Legal term
Common Benefit Fund
Updated Jul 19, 20262 sources
In a sentence
A court-ordered holdback — typically 3% to 11% of every recovery in an MDL — that pays the leadership attorneys who do the shared work. It comes out of recoveries on top of your own lawyer's contingency fee.
MDL leadership (lead counsel and steering committees) does the common work: master discovery, expert development, bellwether trials, settlement negotiation. Courts fund that work by ordering a percentage held back from every claimant's recovery — including claimants whose own lawyers did none of the common work.
The holdback stacks with your contingency fee, case expenses, and any liens — all before your net.
