Guides 4 min read
How serial litigation is built.
When a business applies the same contract to all its customers, the same fault recurs for each of them. Hello Justice then handles these cases as a series.
Vincent DURAND, partner, member of the Lyon Bar Updated
A bank offers the same loan terms to all its customers. An insurer applies the same general conditions to everyone it covers. If one of those clauses is open to challenge, it is open to challenge in every contract signed, and the same dispute recurs for a large number of people. Taken alone, each loss rarely justifies the cost of a lawsuit. Handling the cases as a series spreads that cost across them, while each case stays individual.
Why series exist.
Large businesses work with standard contracts and standardised procedures. This standardisation is an economic necessity. It has a legal consequence: a design error is reproduced identically in every contract concerned.
Every customer then suffers the same breach. Many do not act, because their loss is smaller than the cost of proceedings.
Handling the cases as a series changes that calculation. The legal analysis, the model pleadings and the list of documents serve every case in the series. The cost of each case falls, and each client keeps their own file.
The conditions for a series.
Before opening a series, we check that the law is sound, that many people are affected, that the claim is not time‑barred and that the defendant can pay. These checks concern the series. No individual litigant is rated.
A common breach.
The same contract, the same clause or the same practice must appear from one case to the next. This common basis allows the analysis and the pleadings to be shared across cases.
Identifiable people.
The people affected must be identifiable and reachable. A series whose members cannot be contacted remains theoretical.
A loss that can be quantified.
Each loss is calculated case by case, from the client’s documents. That calculation supports the claim put to the judge.
A solvent defendant.
Hello Justice checks at the outset that the defendant will be able to pay a judgment. This analysis comes before any proceedings.
Detection.
Detection starts from public sources: published court decisions, regulators’ sanctions, legal notices. Vigie™, our proprietary litigation detection algorithm, reads these sources. It flags the legal questions that recur and the groups of people they affect. We describe this work in our article on court decision open data. At this stage, a series is still a hypothesis.
Legal analysis.
A specialised partner lawyer then analyses the legal basis, the state of the case law and limitation (the time limit for bringing a claim). The review also covers the documents needed and the reasonable chances of success. This analysis rules out candidate series: a fragile legal basis, unfavourable case law, people who cannot be found, an insolvent defendant. Not every series detected becomes a programme.
Informing the people affected.
The people affected often do not know their rights. They must be informed, then given a way to check their situation and gather their documents. An online journey asks the relevant questions and lists the documents specific to the dispute.
The first case in a series takes the most work. The following ones benefit from standard documents, pleadings already drafted and the experience gained. Each case is still analysed individually by a specialised partner lawyer, and not every case is accepted.
The proceedings and their outcome.
Each client’s lawyer then runs the proceedings: hearing, decision, possible appeal, enforcement. Outcomes come at different times, case by case. Monitoring must show where each case stands and what a new decision changes for the others.
Series and class actions.
The class action is a legal procedure, reformed by the law of 30 April 2025. In it, an association or entity acts on behalf of a group. We explain it in a dedicated article.
A series funded by Hello Justice works differently. Each client has their own file, agreement, lawyer, judgment and compensation, calculated on their own loss. The two routes can coexist for the same breach.
The example of Swiss franc loans.
The Swiss franc loan programme follows these steps. On 9 July 2025, the Cour de cassation published two rulings on these loans, recent case law, liable to change. The programme covers loans taken out between 2002 and 2015. We estimate the number of eligible cases at around 50,000. The average loss is estimated at around €180,000, and each loss is calculated case by case.
An online journey guides borrowers through checking their situation and filing their documents. Specialised partner lawyers analyse each case. Our method is described on the method page.
