In this hyper-commercial world, we interact with thousands of diverse companies and enterprises as we go about our daily lives. In our food purchases, our modes of transportation, in meeting our medical and recreational needs, we place our trust in companies we may or may not know and in people we have never met. This is a fact of modern life.

The financial structures that support our way of life are likewise under the control of others we do not know; yet we necessarily entrust them with our pensions, our children's education funds, our very futures.

Where so much trust is necessary for the efficient function of commerce and industry, there must be a balance of accountability.

Our legal system provides a method of accountability whereby the inequities of scale and resources do not affect outcomes. This method is through class actions. In class actions, the playing field between a David and a Goliath is leveled. Even large institutions can be like David when confronting corporate giants. If the alleged commercial or financial wrongdoing meets certain legal and factual criteria, the law provides that an individual or entity may commence a lawsuit on one's own behalf and on behalf of all others that have been similarly harmed. As a result, the potential for challenging corporate abuses and righting injustice is available to all.

In these complex times, it is often only through the power of the class action mechanism that we as a society can be reasonably assured of the integrity of both the financial and commercial marketplace. With this efficient and effective tool, ordinary citizens and institutional investors can bring about extraordinary results.