Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.8(g), adopted in some form in most states, prohibits a lawyer representing multiple clients from participating in an aggregate settlement of their claims unless each client gives informed consent in writing, after being told the existence and nature of all the claims involved, the total amount of the settlement, and the share each client will receive.

The rule exists because aggregate settlements create an inherent conflict: a lawyer negotiating a lump sum for many clients at once has an incentive to trade a lower amount for one client in order to close the deal for the group as a whole, and clients cannot meaningfully consent to that tradeoff without seeing the full picture.

Juricratic flags aggregate-settlement structures as carrying real allocation risk distinct from the headline settlement figure — in a simulation of a mass tort resolution, the rule requires disclosure that the modeled claims-matrix allocation itself must be transparent to every individual claimant before the deal can close.

Plaintiffs' firms resolving large blocks of mass tort claims through a private settlement build detailed disclosure packages for each client — showing the aggregate deal terms and the individual allocation formula — to satisfy Rule 1.8(g) and avoid a later ethics or malpractice challenge to the settlement.