Law360, New York ( July 3, 2014, 4:32 PM EDT) -- An accomplished defense attorney recently advocated on this site competitive bidding among firms seeking to represent class plaintiffs in antitrust litigation. His primary premises were: (1) the private ordering that determines lead counsel positions in most antitrust class actions is collusion among competitors; and (2) class members would be better served by competitive bidding in that context. The latter premise turns in part on the additional premises that: (3) the process by which attorneys' fees are established in any case will have no bearing on the resolution of the case; and (4) given a fixed settlement amount, competitive bidding will tend to result in class members recovering more for themselves, by reducing attorney fee awards....