Liaison Counsel

Liaison counsel is a court-appointed role in an MDL, typically filled by an attorney based in the transferee district, responsible for administrative and logistical functions such as maintaining the master service list, coordinating filing and communication between the parties and the court, managing the shared document repository, and facilitating scheduling — functions distinct from the substantive litigation strategy, discovery direction, and settlement negotiation authority held by the Plaintiff Steering Committee and lead counsel. Because liaison counsel's role is administrative rather than strategic, compensation for this work is typically modest relative to PSC and lead counsel common benefit awards, and the position is sometimes held by a smaller local firm that would not otherwise have the resources or client volume to serve on the PSC itself. Some MDLs separate plaintiffs' liaison counsel from defense liaison counsel, each performing parallel administrative functions for their respective sides, while the leadership and strategic decision-making on each side remains with the PSC or the defense trial team. The role is a useful entry point for a smaller local firm to gain visibility and standing within a large MDL's leadership structure, occasionally serving as a stepping stone to a more substantive PSC appointment in the same or a future docket.

Liaison counsel appointments carry little direct economic significance for funders and are not typically a meaningful factor in return modeling, but the identity and quality of liaison counsel can be a useful proxy for how well-organized a docket's administrative infrastructure is, which indirectly affects the pace of case management order issuance and docket-wide communication.

Funders reviewing MDL leadership structure as part of docket diligence should distinguish liaison counsel's administrative function from the PSC's substantive control, since the two roles carry entirely different weight in assessing who actually drives litigation and settlement strategy.