This line of reasoning doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As a member of several class action lawsuits over the past 20+ years, I bet I've made out like a bandit - no less than $2.50 distributed over maybe 5-7 CALs. Sweet! The lawyers, however, probably made $500,000,000 with those 5-7 lawsuits.
So while there's a financial want from the lawyers' perspective, why would I want to go that route?
Generally speaking, class action suits--especially for smaller claims, like what chris_wot implies--are less about seeking individual relief and more about leveraging the potential for significant damages to force a defendant to initiate a change in a given behavior. So even though you might only walk away with a few pennies, on balance, there's a net benefit to the public value that stems from behavioral changes.
If Mr. Burns is dumping his chemical waste into Lake Springfield and you're winding up with little three-eyed fish as a result, you're hoping to force Mr. Burns to stop polluting the lake.
Are there sleazy class action attorneys? Absolutely. They can be found on late night television, ugly billboards with creepy mugshots, and stalking ambulance drivers (:D). Basically, anywhere your regular run-of-the-mill scheister attorneys can be found. But they're also fewer in number, mainly because class action litigation is significantly more resource-intensive than other types of litigation. And since class action attorneys are almost always working on a contingency basis, there's a lot to support the idea that they earn their fees here.
It might not seem fair when you're looking at a $2.50 check, but that's the tradeoff you accept in order to bolster your ability to force a change.
I think that the lawyers suing for class action status use one (or a few people) as their "examples" of people harmed by the complaint. Those people may make some money... You may just need to get into your class action suits much earlier...
