Most people who are in a class action don’t know it until a notice arrives. Most groups with a real claim never start one because they assume you need thousands of people and a national firm. Neither is true. The threshold is seven, the limitation clock stops the day it’s filed, and a group member who loses pays nothing. We act for lead applicants, advise group members independently, and defend businesses facing a claim. The first conversation is free, and it usually answers the only question that matters: is this actually a class action, and are you in it?
Received a notice with a date on it? That date is the opt-out deadline. Call before it.
Where you stand
Four very different situations that all end up on the same page. Tap the one that's yours.
You do not need to have signed anything, registered anywhere or paid anyone to be a group member. If the group definition describes you, you are in.
Received a notice from a firm you’ve never heard of? That’s normal. It doesn’t mean you owe them anything, and it doesn’t mean you have to use them.
What we do
Three sides of the same proceeding. We act on all three, which is how you learn where each one is weak.
Class actions in Australia run on an opt-out model, which means a proceeding can bind you without you ever agreeing to it, and can compensate you without you ever lifting a finger. That’s the whole point of the regime, and it’s also why most people in one have no idea what’s happening to them. We act for the person who starts the action, for the group members who are swept into it, and for the businesses defending it. Not usually in the same action. But the experience of each is what makes the advice on the others worth having.
What it means, whether the group definition covers you, what happens if you do nothing, and whether the firm running it is the right one for your claim.
Stay in, opt out and claim individually, or opt out and do nothing. The date is in the notice and the court enforces it.
Registration deadlines, claim forms, and what evidence the settlement administrator will actually accept.
Group members have a right to be heard before the court approves a settlement. Almost nobody uses it. Sometimes they should.
What the representative party signs up for, the funding and indemnity arrangements, and what it could cost you personally.
Seven or more people with the same problem. We assess the common issues, the numbers, the funding and the forum before anyone commits.
Whether the threshold is met, who the group actually is, and what the realistic exposure and cost look like, before it's filed.
Strategy on the common issues, the group definition, security for costs, and whether it should continue as a class action at all.
A settlement the court will approve, and a distribution scheme that ends the matter rather than reopening it.
Getting the insurer on notice early, because late notification voids cover, and managing the policy response alongside the litigation.
A class action is not a petition. Numbers matter far less than whether the claims share a substantial common issue. Seven people with the same problem is a class action. Seven thousand with different ones isn’t.
The numbers that matter
One threshold, one deadline, one suspension and one zero. Every class action page should lead with these. None of them do.
Class actions run on a small number of rules that do most of the work. Whether a claim can be a class action at all is a three-part test with a number in it. Whether you stay in is a single date. Whether you lose anything by waiting is answered by a section almost nobody has read. And what it costs you if it fails is, for a group member, nothing. These four things are the difference between someone who understands their position and someone who is waiting for a letter to tell them.
Seven or more people with claims against the same party, arising from the same, similar or related circumstances, sharing a substantial common issue of law or fact. That is the entire threshold. Not hundreds. Not thousands.
The court fixes a date before which a group member may opt out. It is in the notice you received. Miss it and you stay in, bound by the result whether it is good or bad.
Filing a class action suspends the limitation period for every group member on day one. It does not restart unless you opt out, or the proceeding ends without deciding your claim. Sitting still costs you nothing.
The court cannot order costs against a group member except on issues specific to their own claim. If the action loses, you pay nothing. The person exposed is the representative applicant, and in a funded action the funder indemnifies them.
Sections, for the record: 7 persons is s 33C of the Federal Court Act and s 157 of the NSW Civil Procedure Act. The opt-out date is s 33J and s 162. The suspension is s 33ZE and s 182. The costs protection is s 43(1A) and s 181. Every one of them applies whether or not you have ever spoken to a lawyer.
That date is the opt-out deadline and the court enforces it. Twenty minutes, no charge, and you’ll know what staying in means and what opting out would cost you.
The three part test
The threshold is written into the legislation and it has exactly three parts. Answer them and you'll know.
People assume a class action needs a national firm, a media campaign and a group in the thousands. The legislation doesn’t. Section 33C of the Federal Court Act, mirrored by s 157 of the NSW Civil Procedure Act, sets a three-part test and nothing more: enough people, related circumstances, and a real common issue. Meet all three and the proceeding can be commenced by any one of the group on behalf of the rest. Fail any one and it isn’t a class action, however many people are angry. The checker below asks those three questions and nothing else.
People or businesses who each have a claim against the same party. Seven is the statutory minimum. It doesn't need to be hundreds.
The same contract, product, event, scheme, decision or course of conduct. The facts don't have to be identical, but they have to be connected.
A real issue of law or fact shared by all the claims. Not "we're all unhappy", but "did this clause mean what they say it means".
This is the statutory threshold and nothing more. It tells you whether a proceeding can be a class action, not whether it should be.
The three questions are the three limbs of s 33C(1) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth) and s 157(1) of the Civil Procedure Act 2005 (NSW). General information only, not advice on your claim.
Passing the test is the start, not the end. Whether it should be run as a class action depends on the size of the pool, whether a funder would touch it, whether the Federal Court or the NSW Supreme Court is the better forum, and who is prepared to be the representative applicant. Those are the next four questions, and they take longer than the first three.
Passed all three?
Bring the group’s story and rough numbers. Twenty minutes, no charge, and you’ll leave knowing whether it’s worth starting and what the person who starts it is signing up for.
Start to finish
Five stages, usually two to four years. For a group member, the answer to "what do I do" is mostly "nothing, except read the notices".
A class action looks like a courtroom drama from the outside and a series of notices from the inside. Most group members never attend anything. The stages below are the ones every action passes through, with what happens at each and, more usefully, what a group member actually has to do. There are only three points where doing nothing can cost you: the opt-out date, the registration deadline if one is set, and the settlement objection window. The rest runs without you.
The representative applicant files. From that day the limitation clock stops for every person the group definition describes, whether they know it or not.
Nothing. You may not know yet.
The court approves a notice and fixes the opt-out date. It's published, and often posted or emailed to people the parties can identify.
Stay in and you're bound. Opt out and you're on your own, clock restarted.
Discovery, evidence, and either a trial of the common questions or, far more often, a mediation. Most actions resolve here without a judgment.
Some actions set a registration deadline around now. If yours does, register.
The court must be satisfied the settlement is fair and reasonable for the group. Group members are notified of the terms and the scheme.
Read the scheme. If it's unfair to people in your position, object before the hearing.
An administrator assesses each claim under the scheme and pays out. Deductions come first. This is often the slowest stage of the whole thing.
Lodge your claim with the administrator. Keep every document.
Miss it and you stay in, bound by whatever happens. The court can extend it, but rarely does, and never for someone who just didn't read the notice.
The funder's commission, the solicitors' costs and the cost of running the scheme all come off first. What's left is divided by the scheme's formula.
Not because they fail, but because people don't lodge, don't respond to the administrator, or can't find the documents. Keep everything from day one.
“How much will I get” is decided by the settlement scheme, not the headline. A twenty-million-dollar settlement with a fifty-thousand-member group, after the funder’s commission and costs, is not twenty million dollars. Read the scheme, and if the numbers don’t make sense for your position, get them explained before the objection window closes.
Settlement notice arrived?
Bring it. Twenty minutes, no charge, and you’ll know what the scheme means for your claim and whether it’s worth objecting.
Who pays, and how
Three ways it's paid for. One of them is not available here, and a High Court decision in August 2025 settled that.
Class actions are expensive to run and most group members contribute nothing towards them, which is the whole reason they exist. So someone else carries the cost and the risk, and how that’s arranged decides how much of any settlement the group actually sees. In New South Wales the options are narrower than the national commentary suggests. Solicitors here cannot charge a percentage of the recovery: the High Court confirmed in Kain v R&B Investments that contingency fees are prohibited under the Uniform Law and that the Federal Court has no power to order them. What’s left is a litigation funder, a conditional costs agreement, or the group paying as it goes. Each has a different effect on what ends up in your hands.
A third party pays the costs and indemnifies the lead applicant against adverse costs. In return it takes a commission on the recovery, approved by the court at settlement or judgment.
Since Kain the court can make a common fund order so that every group member contributes equally to the commission, not only those who signed with the funder.
Certainty and no personal risk, against a share of the outcome that can be substantial.
The solicitors act on the basis that they recover their costs only if the action succeeds, with an uplift of up to 25 per cent on those costs. Permitted under the Uniform Law and still assessed by the court before it comes out of the settlement.
The lead applicant remains exposed to adverse costs unless that is separately insured or indemnified.
No funder's commission, but someone still carries the downside. Suits smaller groups a funder wouldn't touch.
Group costs orders, which let solicitors take a contingency percentage, exist only in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Contingency fees are prohibited for NSW solicitors under s 183 of the Uniform Law.
In August 2025 the High Court, unanimously, confirmed the Federal Court cannot make a common fund order in favour of solicitors bound by that prohibition.
Any Sydney firm offering to run your class action for a percentage is offering something the law does not allow.
Ask all three. If the answers aren't clear, that is the answer.
“No win no fee” and “no cost to you” are not the same thing. The first describes the solicitor’s fee. The second is only true for group members, and only because the legislation says so. The lead applicant is always exposed to something, and should know exactly what before agreeing to be the name on the file.
General information only. This page describes the class action regimes in the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of New South Wales in general terms and is not legal advice for your situation. Contingency fee arrangements described here as unavailable are unavailable in NSW; the position in Victoria differs. Reviewed September 2026, and reviewed again on any High Court decision or legislative change affecting funding orders.
Who runs your matter
In a class action the detail that decides everything is whether the definition describes you. It doesn't survive a handover.
A class action is decided, for most of the people in it, by a single sentence: the group definition. If it describes you, you are in, bound by the outcome and entitled to a share of it. If it doesn't, nothing that happens in the proceeding touches you. Everything else on this page follows from that sentence, and it is the first thing we read, on whichever side of the matter we are acting.
We act for the person who starts the action, we advise group members independently on the notices they receive, and we defend businesses facing a claim. Not in the same action, but across enough of them that the advice on each side is informed by the other two. The firm running a class action cannot tell a group member whether to stay in it. That is a conflict, not a criticism. It is also the gap.
Three questions decide the shape of everything that follows. Does the group definition cover you. What is the date in the notice. And what will be deducted before anyone is paid. Each takes minutes to answer and each is routinely never asked.
Whether the definition describes you decides everything else. We read it before we read anything else.
NSW has its own regime under Part 10 of the Civil Procedure Act. Which court is the right one is a real question, not a default.
Grosvenor Place, 225 George Street. Minutes from the Federal Court and the Supreme Court, where every NSW class action is heard.
Why BOS Legal
Independent, on the right side of the numbers, and honest about what a percentage would cost you.
The firm running the action cannot advise you on whether to stay in it. We can, because we are not in it. That is the whole reason this page exists.
The national firms want thousands of group members and a pool in the tens of millions. The legislation wants seven. If your group is real, its size is not the reason to walk away from it.
Funder commission, uplift, costs, scheme administration. Before you agree to anything, not after the cheque turns out smaller than the headline.
Grosvenor Place, 225 George Street. Minutes from the Federal Court and the Supreme Court, where every class action in New South Wales is heard.
The evidence rules, the interlocutory steps, the mediation and the costs exposure for the person whose name is on the file are the same ones that run every other dispute in the Supreme Court. The group machinery sits on top. Firms that only know the machinery tend to be surprised by what’s underneath it.
No charge for the first conversation. Confidential.
You're a group member unless you opt out by the date on it. Nothing to sign, nothing to pay, and nothing lost by waiting.
You're in unless you opt out. Nothing to sign, nothing to pay.
Class actions
If the group definition in the notice describes you, yes. Australian class actions run on an opt-out model: you are a group member automatically, without signing, registering or agreeing to anything. The notice will give you a date by which you can opt out. If you do nothing, you stay in and are bound by the result, good or bad. If you opt out, you keep the right to sue individually, and your limitation period starts running again from that day.
Usually not, unless you have a claim that's significantly bigger or different from the group's and you intend to run it yourself. Staying in costs a group member nothing and carries no costs risk. Opting out means you carry your own claim, your own costs and your own limitation period. The one situation where opting out is clearly right is where you're already running your own proceedings about the same thing. Otherwise, get advice before the date, because the decision is enforced.
Not as a group member. The court cannot order costs against you except on issues specific to your own claim. The representative applicant is exposed, and in a funded action the funder indemnifies them for adverse costs. If you've been asked to be the representative applicant, the indemnity is the first document to read.
Seven. Seven or more people with claims against the same party, arising from the same, similar or related circumstances, with at least one substantial common issue of law or fact. That is the threshold in both the Federal Court and the NSW Supreme Court. There's no requirement for hundreds, and no requirement that the claims be identical.
Two to four years is typical from filing to distribution. Opt-out notices usually go out within the first year. Most actions resolve at mediation rather than trial, often in the second or third year. Court approval of a settlement and then distribution by an administrator add months at the end, and the distribution stage is frequently the slowest. Anyone giving you a firm timetable at the start is guessing.
It depends on the settlement scheme, not the headline figure. From the gross settlement the court approves deductions for the funder's commission if there is one, the solicitors' costs, and the cost of administering the scheme. What's left is divided under a formula the scheme sets, which may weight claims by loss, by date, or by category. Group members are told the proposed scheme before the approval hearing and have a right to object. Read it. If your position is treated unfairly, that is the moment to say so.
No. Contingency fees are prohibited for solicitors under the Legal Profession Uniform Law in New South Wales, and in August 2025 the High Court in Kain v R&B Investments confirmed the Federal Court cannot make a common fund order in favour of solicitors bound by that law. Percentage-based group costs orders exist only in the Supreme Court of Victoria. In NSW a firm is paid its assessed costs, possibly with an uplift under a conditional costs agreement. A litigation funder, which is not a law firm, can take a court-approved commission.
Three things, quickly. First, notify your insurer, because most policies require it and late notification can void cover. Second, work out whether the threshold is actually met, because a threat is not a proceeding and a group of complainants is not a class. Third, understand who the group would be and what the realistic exposure is, because that decides whether to engage early or wait for a filing. The first ninety days tend to set the shape of everything that follows.
Bring the notice if you've received one, or the group's story and rough numbers if there isn't one yet.
And if it is, what staying in means, what opting out would cost, and what's being deducted before anyone is paid.
A written estimate before any work begins. No open accounts.
Sydney and regional NSW court appearances for interstate and out-of-town solicitors. Fixed fee, same-day confirmation, court-by-court pricing.
Contract, shareholder, debt and business disputes in every NSW court. A written view on prospects and cost before you commit to a fight.
Unfair dismissal, general protections, redundancy and restraints of trade. Acting for employees and employers. Strict 21-day deadlines apply.
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Wills, powers of attorney, probate and estate administration, and contesting a will in NSW. Structured properly the first time, so your family isn't left arguing.
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Twenty minutes with a lawyer. You'll leave the call knowing where you stand, what your options are, and what the first step costs.
