FORBIDDING LEGAL SERVICES' CLASS ACTIONS 'MAKES NO SENSE'

To the Editor:

The utility of the class-action device as a means of vindicating the rights of numerous persons similarly situated should need no defense. A consultant for the American Life Lobby, Inc., Gary L. Curran, however, would ban Legal Services Corporation lawyers from initiating such actions (letter Dec. 27).

In support of his position, Mr. Curran contends that such a ban would eliminate duplication and waste. He is wrong. Rather, as the American Bar Association recently stated, ''Legal Services programs must make the most of their limited resources. One essential way of doing so is to bring class actions in carefully selected cases. In many cases, a class-action suit seeking declaratory and/or injunctive relief is fairer, faster and more efficient than an endless series of suits on behalf of similarly situated individual clients.''

Most importantly, the record of Legal Services in class-action litigation is impressive. In numerous cases, paramount rights of Legal Services clients have been protected in matters pertaining to health care, education, welfare benefits, housing and Social Security benefits.

In a nationwide class action brought by Legal Services attorneys involving the rights of Social Security beneficiaries, Califano v. Yamasaki, the U.S. Supreme Court observed that ''the class-action device saves the resources of both the courts and the parties by permitting an issue potentially affecting every Social Security beneficiary to be litigated in an economical fashion ....''

Class actions are universally recognized by lawyers and the judiciary as uniquely effective in a variety of situations. Some of these include actions which challenge conduct that harms large numbers of persons where the costs of a lawsuit on behalf of a single aggrieved person would far exceed any recovery, where the claim of a single plaintiff may become moot, when defendants may be subjected to inconsistent decisions or when defendants decline to comply with a decision brought on behalf of only an individual.

Moreover, class actions are carefully regulated by Federal and state statutes which empower the courts to determine the propriety of a pleaded class action and, of course, whether the action has merit and warrants the award of any relief.