Letter · Class Actions / Representative Proceedings
Retainer letter and conditional costs agreement for a representative applicant (Federal Court class action)
Engagement letter and conditional costs agreement for the person who will be the representative applicant: their role and duties to group members, adverse costs exposure, funder arrangements, uplift limits, cooling-off and conflicts.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- Australia, Commonwealth, New South Wales
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 5 authorities it cites, for Australia, Commonwealth and New South Wales.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use before filing, when the firm is retained by the proposed representative applicant in a Part IVA proceeding on a conditional ("no win, no fee") basis, with or without a litigation funder. It must be signed before work under it starts and disclosed to the Court as the class actions practice note requires.
How AI may be used
AI may assemble the letter from the firm's approved costs agreement and the matter details; a lawyer settles the costs terms, the successful outcome definition and the conflicts provisions, and checks the estimates.
AI may
- Fill the parties, proceeding description, rates and estimate tables from the matter file and the firm's approved rates
- Cross-check the letter against the litigation funding agreement for inconsistent terms on adverse costs, security, termination and settlement
- Produce a plain-language summary table of costs and risks for the client to read alongside the agreement
AI must not
- Must not include a fee calculated by reference to the amount recovered, unless the matter is in a court and regime that permits it and the lawyer has confirmed it
- Must not set or estimate the uplift percentage, or state that a successful outcome is likely
- Must not describe the funder's commission or the adverse costs indemnity other than as stated in the signed funding agreement
The lawyer checks
- The agreement meets every requirement of Uniform Law s 181, and any uplift meets s 182 (reasonable belief recorded, no more than 25%, basis and estimate given)
- The successful outcome definition fits the class action (judgment, settlement approved under s 33V, or both) and is unambiguous
- Conflicts between the applicant, group members, the firm and the funder are identified and a management process is written in, as GPN-CA para 5.9 requires
- The client understands their personal adverse costs exposure and what the funder's indemnity does and does not cover
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Class Actions / Representative Proceedings
- Opt-out notice, notice distribution plan and settlement-notice checklist (Federal Court class action)
- Litigation funding agreement and costs review checklist (including common fund orders and Victorian group costs orders)
- Pre-filing memo: Part IVA threshold requirements and class definition
- Settlement approval application checklist (Federal Court class action, s 33V and GPN-CA)
- Settlement distribution scheme (with safeguards for technology-assisted claims assessment)
- Periodic update letter to group members (clients and registered group members)
- Letter to the respondent's lawyers about communications with class members
- Group member registration and intake protocol (including AI triage of registrations)
- Prompt template with guardrails: reconciling registrations to the class definition
All precedents for Class Actions / Representative Proceedings · Tasks and AI use in this area