In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Nos. 00-3122, 00-3178, 00-3181, 00-3182,

00-3367, 01-1239, 01-1617, 01-1654, 01-

2231, 01-2339, 01-2445, 01-2747, 01-2785,

& 01-3545

Cheryl Reynolds, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

Beneficial National Bank, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeals of: Belinda Peterson, et al.

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

Nos. 98 C 2178 & 98 C 2550--James B. Zagel, Judge.

Argued February 12, 2002--Decided April 23, 2002

 Before Cudahy, Posner, and Rovner, Circuit

Judges.

 Posner, Circuit Judge. We have

consolidated for decision a number of

appeals from orders by the district court

approving a settlement of consumerfinance class action litigation, denying

petitions to intervene, and awarding

attorneys’ fees. "Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 23(e) requires court approval

of any settlement that effects the

dismissal of a class action. Before such

a settlement may be approved, the

district court must determine that a

class action settlement is fair,

adequate, and reasonable, and not a

product of collusion." Joel A. v.

Giuliani, 218 F.3d 132, 138 (2d Cir.

2000). The principal issue presented by

these appeals is whether the district

judge discharged the judicial duty to

protect the members of a class in class

action litigation from lawyers for the

class who may, in derogation of their

professional and fiduciary obligations,

place their pecuniary self-interest ahead

of that of the class. This problem,

repeatedly remarked by judges and

scholars, see, e.g., Culver v. City of
Milwaukee, 277 F.3d 908, 910 (7th Cir.

2002); Greisz v. Household Bank

(Illinois), N.A., 176 F.3d 1012, 1013

(7th Cir. 1999); Rand v. Monsanto Co.,

926 F.2d 596, 599 (7th Cir. 1991);

Duhaime v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins.

Co., 183 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 1999); John

C. Coffee, Jr., "Class Action

Accountability: Reconciling Exit, Voice,

and Loyalty in Representative

Litigation," 100 Colum. L. Rev. 370,-385-

93 (2000); David L. Shapiro, "Class

Actions: The Class as Party and Client,"

73 Notre Dame L. Rev. 913, 958-60 and n.

132 (1998), requires district judges to

exercise the highest degree of vigilance

in scrutinizing proposed settlements of

class actions. We and other courts have

gone so far as to term the district judge

in the settlement phase of a class action

suit a fiduciary of the class, who is

subject therefore to the high duty of

care that the law requires of

fiduciaries. Culver v. City of Milwaukee,

supra, 277 F.3d at 915; Stewart v.

General Motors Corp., 756 F.2d 1285, 1293

(7th Cir. 1985); In re Cendant Corp.

Litigation, 264 F.3d 201, 231 (3d Cir.

2001); Grant v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.,

823 F.2d 20, 22 (2d Cir. 1987).

 We do not know whether the $25 million

settlement that the district judge

approved is a reasonable amount given the

risk and likely return to the class of

continued litigation; we do not have

sufficient information to make a judgment

on that question. What we do know is

that, as in such cases as In re General

Motors Corp. Engine Interchange

Litigation, 594 F.2d 1106, 1124 (7th Cir.

1979); Ficalora v. Lockheed California

Co., 751 F.2d 995, 997 (9th Cir. 1985)

(per curiam); Holmes v. Continental Can

Co., 706 F.2d 1144, 1150-51 (11th Cir.

1983), and Pettway v. American Cast Iron

Pipe Co., 576 F.2d 1157, 1214, 1218-19

(5th Cir. 1978), the judge did not give

the issue of the settlement’s adequacy

the care that it deserved.

 This litigation arose out of refund

anticipation loans made jointly by the

two principal defendants, Beneficial

National Bank and H & R Block, the tax

preparer. When H & R Block files a refund

claim with the Internal Revenue Service

on behalf of one of its customers, the

customer can expect to receive the refund

within a few weeks unless the IRS decides
to scrutinize the return for one reason

or another. But even a few weeks is too

long for the most necessitous taxpayers,

and so Beneficial through Block offers to

lend the customer the amount of the

refund for the period between the filing

of the claim and the receipt of the

refund. The annual interest rate on such

a loan will often exceed 100 percent--

easily a quarter of the refund, even

though the loan may be outstanding for

only a few days. Block arranges the loan

but Beneficial puts up the money for it.

Not disclosed to the customer is the fact

that Beneficial pays Block a fee for

arranging the loan and that Block also

owns part of the loan.

 Beginning in 1990, more than twenty

class actions were brought against the

defendants on behalf of the refundanticipation borrowers. The suits charged

a variety of violations of state and

federal consumer-finance laws and also

breach of fiduciary duty under state law.

Some of the alleged violations appear to

be technical. The most damaging charge

appears to be that Block’s customers are

led to believe that Block is acting as

their agent or fiduciary, much as if they

had hired a lawyer or accountant to

prepare their income tax returns, as

affluent people do, whereas Block is,

without disclosure to them, engaged in

self-dealing.

 Most of the suits failed on one ground

or another; none has resulted in a final

judgment against Beneficial or Block. But

in the late 1990s several withstood

motions to dismiss or motions for summary

judgment, and at least one, a Texas suit,

was slated for trial.

 On September 3, 1997, two lawyers who

had prosecuted two of the unsuccessful

class actions, Howard Prossnitz and

Francine Schwartz, had lunch in Chicago

with Burt Rublin, who was and remains

Beneficial’s lead lawyer in defending

against the class-action avalanche.

Prossnitz and Schwartz brought with them

to the lunch another lawyer, Daniel

Harris. Although neither Prossnitz nor

Schwartz, nor their friend Harris, had a

pending suit against Beneficial (or

against Block, which was not represented

at the lunch), they discussed "a global

RAL settlement" with Rublin. It is

doubtful whether Prossnitz or Schwartz
even had a client at this time; and

certainly Harris did not. Schwartz later

"bought" a client from another lawyer, to

whom she promised a $100,000 referral

fee. The necessity for such a

transaction, when the class contains 17

million members, eludes our

understanding.

 In the hearing before the district judge

on the adequacy of the settlement (the

"fairness hearing," as it is called),

Harris testified that at the lunch Rublin

"’threw out’ a number, for purposes of

illustration, of $24 or $25 million." The

judge described this testimony (which he

elsewhere describes as "Harris believes

he heard Rublin say the case was worth

$23 or $24 million"), though it is

vociferously denied by Rublin, as

"credible." There was, however, no actual

settlement negotiation at the lunch.

 Prossnitz, Schwartz, and Harris, all

solo practitioners, brought a substantial

law firm, Miller Faucher and Cafferty

LLP, into the picture. In April of the

following year the foursome filed two

class action suits against

Beneficialsimilar to the others that had

been filed and that were (those that

hadn’t flopped) wending their way through

the courts of various states. One of the

two suits filed also named as defendants

H & R Block and three affiliated Block

entities, but three of those, including

Block itself, were voluntarily dismissed

from the suit by the plaintiffs in

October 1998 and the fourth was dismissed

in February 1999. Shortly after the suits

were filed, Harris made a settlement

offer to Beneficial that was rejected,

but after a hiatus negotiations began.

Block was included in the settlement

negotiations, despite the fact that there

were by then no claims pending against

it. It was included because Beneficial

was reluctant to settle without Block,

having promised to indemnify it for any

liability resulting from Block’s role in

Beneficial’s refund anticipation loans.

 In October of 1999, a class jointly

represented by the three solo

practitioners and the Miller firm (we’ll

call these the "settlement class

lawyers"), plus Beneficial and Block, en

tered into a settlement agreement which

they submitted to the district court for

its approval. The agreement contemplated
the filing of an amended complaint naming

H & R Block as a defendant, and by its

terms covered claims against five Block

entities, of which four were the entities

originally named but subsequently

dismissed as defendants in one of the two

original class action complaints. The

agreement defined the class as all

persons who had obtained refund

anticipation loans from Beneficial

between January 1, 1987, and October 26,

1999, and provided for the release of all

claims "arising out of or in any way

relating to the tax refund anticipation

loans (’RALs,’ sometimes erroneously

referred to as ’Rapid Refunds’) obtained

by the Class at any time up to and

through" that date. The defendants agreed

to create a fund of $25 million against

which members of the class could file a

claim not to exceed $15. Any money left

in the fund after the expiration of the

period for filing claims was to revert to

the defendants, who also agreed to

injunctive relief in the form of certain

required disclosures to future customers,

primarily of the financial arrangements

between Beneficial and Block, and to bear

the cost of notice to class members and

of the class counsel’s legal fees out of

their own pockets rather than out of the

settlement fund. One RAL class action,

the Basile suit pending in the

Pennsylvania courts, was excluded from

the agreement, apparently because Block

thought it could get the supreme court of

that state to reverse a lower court

decision that had gone against the

company. Beneficial and Block agreed to

split the expense of the settlement 50-

50.

 The district judge approved the

settlement except for the reversion and

the $15 cap, which at his insistence the

parties raised to $30 for those members

of the class (apparently the vast

majority) who had had received two or

more tax refund anticipation loans from

Block. With these changes the settlement

was approved and notices mailed to 17

million persons--most of whom ignored

them; several million of the notices,

moreover, were undeliverable, presumably

because the addressees had moved and left

no forwarding address. Only 1 million of

the recipients filed claims, which would

be enough, however, to exhaust the

settlement fund. Only about 6,000 of the

recipients opted out of the class action
so that they could seek additional relief

against the defendants.

 Incidentally, there is an unremarked

conflict of interest within the class,

between those class members who took out

one or two refund anticipation loans and

those who took out more than two and thus

will receive no compensation for the

additional damages that they incurred.

Conflicts of interest can create serious

problems for class action settlements,

see, e.g., Amchem Products, Inc. v.

Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 626-27 (1997);

Retired Chicago Police Ass’n v. City of

Chicago, 7 F.3d 584, 598 (7th Cir. 1993),

and require the creation of separately

represented subclasses. But in light of

the modesty of the stakes even of class

members who had multiple refund

anticipation loans and the expense

ofsubdividing the class (and how many

subdivisions would be necessary to

reflect the full range of damages?), we

are not disposed to regard this

particular defect in the settlement as

fatal.

 In finding that $25 million was an

adequate settlement, the judge relied in

part on an unsworn report by James Adler,

an accountant who purported to estimate

the damages caused by the defendants’

alleged violations of law. He was not

deposed or subjected to cross-examination

and the judge did not discuss the

adequacy of his methodology. Adler came

up with a figure of $60 million, but it

is unclear whether this was intended to

be an estimate of the entire damages that

the class might hope to recover if the

case was tried and went to judgment and

what legal assumptions underpinned the

estimates.

 The various objectors to the settlement,

primarily intervening or would-be

intervening plaintiffs who have claims

that the settlement will release, contend

that the settlement agreement is the

product of a "reverse auction," the prac

tice whereby the defendant in a series of

class actions picks the most ineffectual

class lawyers to negotiate a settlement

with in the hope that the district court

will approve a weak settlement that will

preclude other claims against the

defendant. Blyden v. Mancusi, 186 F.3d

252, 270 n. 9 (2d Cir. 1999); Coffee,

supra, at 392; Samuel Issacharoff,
"Governance and Legitimacy in the Law of

Class Actions," 1999 Sup. Ct. Rev. 337,

388; Marcel Kahan & Linda Silberman, "The

Inadequate Search for ’Adequacy’ in Class

Actions: A Critique of Epstein v. MCA,

Inc.," 73 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 765, 775 (1998);

John C. Coffee, Jr., "Class Wars: The

Dilemma of the Mass Tort Class Action,"

95 Colum. L. Rev. 1343, 1370-73 (1995).

The ineffectual lawyers are happy to sell

out a class they anyway can’t do much for

in exchange for generous attorneys’ fees,

and the defendants are happy to pay

generous attorneys’ fees since all they

care about is the bottom line--the sum of

the settlement and the attorneys’ fees--

and not the allocation of money between

the two categories of expense. The

defendants agreed to pay attorneys’ fees

in this case, to the three solo

practitioners and the law firm that

negotiated the settlement, of up to $4.25

million.

 Although there is no proof that the

settlement was actually collusive in the

reverse-auction sense, the circumstances

demanded closer scrutiny than the

district judge gave it. He painted with

too broad a brush, substituting intuition

for the evidence and careful analysis

that a case of this magnitude, and a

settlement proposal of such questionable

antecedents and circumstances, required.

The initial agreement submitted for the

judge’s approval, remember, had provided

for a reversion and also capped each

class member’s recovery at $15. If the

parties had an inkling that only 1

million class members would file claims,

they were agreeing to a settlement worth

only $15 million, and probably less; for

if 1 million class members filed claims

capped at $30, fewer would have filed

claims capped at $15. Yet according to a

credibility determination by the district

judge that we are not in a position to

second guess, two and half years earlier,

before RAL plaintiffs began having some

success in the courts, Beneficial’s

counsel had indicated that $23 to $25

million were ballpark figures for a

settlement with Beneficial alone.

Beneficial’s share of a $15 million

settlement in which Block was a

codefendant would be only $7.5 million

(remember that Beneficial and Block

agreed to split the cost of the

settlement 50-50)--yet that is the

settlement the lawyers for the settlement
class agreed to, plus injunctive relief

the value of which no one has attempted

to monetize and which is barely discussed

in the briefs or by the judge. The

injunctive relief signally does not

include a requirement that H & R Block

disclose its interest in Beneficial’s

refund anticipation loans.

 Moreover, H & R Block appears to have

faced substantial exposure in a Texas

class action in which it was accused of

breach of fiduciary obligations to its

customers. The class in that suit was

seeking disgorgement of all the fees paid

to Block by the banks that made refund

anticipation loans through it. The class

argued that such a forfeiture was

mandatory if Block was found to have

violated its fiduciary duties.

Disgorgement was also sought of all other

fees that Block had received "in

connection with each RAL transaction"--

that is, the tax-preparation and

electronic-filing fees that Block had

charged its RAL customers to file their

taxes for them--a form of relief that the

class claimed was within the trial

court’s equitable discretion. The total

amount sought could have reached $2

billion. The class had been certified,

the case was proceeding in the Texas

courts, and the theory of liability and

damages could not be dismissed as

frivolous; indeed, the case had been set

for trial. Even if the class had only a

1 percent chance of prevailing, the

expected value of its suit might reach

$20 million. (This is on the unrealistic

assumption that the only possible

outcomes were a $2 billion judgment and a

zero judgment. Realistic intermediate

possibilities could make the $20 million

estimate expand or shrink.)

 Remarkably in view of the progress and

promise of the Texas suit relative to the

half-hearted efforts of the settlement

class counsel, the district judge

enjoined the Texas suit on the authority

of the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. sec.

1651(a), reasoning that the suit might

upend the settlement. In re VMS

Securities Litigation, 103 F.3d 1317,

1323-24 (7th Cir. 1996); In re Agent

Orange Product Liability Litigation, 996

F.2d 1425, 1431-32 (2d Cir. 1993); In re

Baldwin-United Corp. (Single Premium

Deferred Annuities Ins. Litigation), 770

F.2d 328, 335-38 (2d Cir. 1985). The
effect of the injunction is that the

settlement release, if upheld, will

release the claims in the Texas suit. For

this release of potentially substantial

claims against H & R Block the settlement

class received no consideration. In fact

the settlement class received no

consideration for the release of any

claims against Block. The only effect of

bringing Block into the settlement was to

allow Beneficial to cut its own expense

of the settlement in half. The lawyers

for the settlement class were richly

rewarded for negotiations that greatly

diminished the cost of settlement to

Beneficial from the level that it had

considered to be in the ballpark years

earlier when the cases were running more

in its favor than when the settlement

agreement was negotiated. In effect, the

settlement values the Texas and all other

claims against Block at zero.

 The district judge enjoined the lawyers

for the Texas class from notifying the

members of that class of the status of

the Texas litigation to assist them in

deciding whether to opt out of the

settlement that the settlement class

counsel had negotiated with Beneficial

and Block and continue to litigate in the

Texas courts. The judge should not have

done this, especially since opting out

was likely to be the sensible course of

action given the ungenerosity of the

settlement to the Texas class. A pattern

of withholding information likely to

undermine the settlement emerged when,

after approving the settlement, the

district judge encouraged the solo

practitioners to submit their fee

applications in camera, lest the paucity

of the time they had devoted to the case

(for which the judge awarded them more

than $2 million in attorneys’ fees) be

used as ammunition by objectors to the

adequacy of the representation of the

class. There was no sound basis for

sealing the fee applications, let alone

for sealing the number of hours each of

the settlement class counsel had devoted

to the case. The applications are not in

the appellate record and we do not know

what the total number of hours devoted by

the class counsel to thislitigation was,

but apparently it was a small number.

This is not surprising, since the

lawyers’ efforts between the filing of

the complaint and the settlement

negotiations were singularly feeble,
illustrated by their responding to the

Block defendants’ motion to dismiss for

lack of personal jurisdiction with a

voluntary dismissal of the claims against

those defendants. Their representation of

the class was almost certainly

inadequate, an independent reason for

disapproving a settlement. Ortiz v.

Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 856 and

n. 31 (1999); Culver v. City of

Milwaukee, supra, 277 F.3d at 913; Linney

v. Cellular Alaska Partnership, 151 F.3d

1234, 1238-39 (9th Cir. 1998). But in

addition it reinforces our concern with

the adequacy of the district judge’s

consideration of the settlement.

 The judge approved the settlement

primarily because he thought the

prospects for the class if the litigation

continued were uncertain. They might lose

in the end, or win little; and even if

they won a lot, the delay in winning

would make the relief eventually awarded

the class worth much less in presentvalue terms. To most people, a dollar

today is worth a great deal more than a

dollar ten years from now. It is

especially likely to be worth more to the

members of the class in this litigation.

Only a person with a very high discount

rate (that is, a strong preference for

present over future dollars--a preference

that may reflect desperation rather than

fecklessness or shortsightedness) would

borrow at an astronomical interest rate

in order to get a sum of money now rather

than a few weeks from now.

 All this is true, but in the suspicious

circumstances that we have recited the

judge should have made a greater effort

(he made none) to quantify the net

expected value of continued litigation to

the class, since a settlement for less

than that value would not be adequate.

Determining that value would require

estimating the range of possible outcomes

and ascribing a probability to each point

on the range, In re General Motors Corp.

Engine Interchange Litigation, supra, 594

F.2d at 1132-33 n. 44, though as just

noted those outcomes must be discounted

to the present using a reasonable, and in

this case perhaps a steep, interest rate.

In re General Motors Corp. Pick-Up Truck

Fuel Tank Products Liability Litigation,

55 F.3d 768, 806 (3d Cir. 1995); cf.

Transcraft, Inc. v. Galvin, Stalmack,

Kirschner & Clark, 39 F.3d 812, 819 (7th
Cir. 1994). We say "perhaps" because even

a person with a high discount rate may

not care much whether he receives $15 to

$30 now or in the future, since it is

such a trivial amount of money even to a

person who is usually strapped for funds.

If, moreover, the court would award

prejudgment interest in a case litigated

to judgment, discounting might wash out

of the picture altogether.

 A high degree of precision cannot be

expected in valuing a litigation,

especially regarding the estimation of

the probability of particular outcomes.

Still, much more could have been done

here without (what is obviously to be

avoided) turning the fairness hearing

into a trial of the merits. For example,

the judge could have insisted that the

parties present evidence that would

enable four possible outcomes to be

estimated: call them high, medium, low,

and zero. High might be in the billions

of dollars, medium in the hundreds of

millions, low in the tens of millions.

Some approximate range of percentages,

reflecting the probability of obtaining

each of these outcomes in a trial (more

likely a series of trials), might be

estimated, and so a ballpark valuation

derived.

 Some arbitrary figures will indicate the

nature of the analysis that we are

envisaging. Suppose a high recovery were

estimated at $5 billion, medium at $200

million, low at $10 million. Suppose the

midpoint of the percentage estimates for

the probability of victory at trial was

.5 percent for the high, 20 percent for

the medium, and 30 percent for the low

(and thus 49.5 percent for zero). Then

the net expected value of the litigation,

before discounting, would be $68 million;

discounting, depending on an estimate of

the likely duration of the litigation,

would bring this figure down, though

probably not to $25 million--and any

discounting might be inappropriate, as we

explained. These figures are arbitrary;

our point is only that the judge made no

effort to translate his intuitions about

the strength of the plaintiffs’ case, the

range of possible damages, and the likely

duration of the litigation if it was not

settled now into numbers that would

permit a responsible evaluation of the

reasonableness of the settlement.
 Two classes were absorbed into the

settlement even though their claims were

sharply different from those of the

classes represented by the settlement

counsel. A class action brought by

Belinda Peterson years before the suit

that gave rise to the settlement

complained of Block’s promise, for which

it levied a separate charge, that a

customer would receive a "rapid refund"

from the IRS. The Peterson class alleges

that Block knew that customers such as

Peterson who were seeking a refund on the

basis of the Earned Income Tax Credit

would not receive it rapidly because the

IRS was subjecting this class of refund

requests to special scrutiny. No loan was

involved. The district judge nevertheless

held that the Peterson class was embraced

by the settlement and release, meaning

that the members of the class would be

entitled to damages of $15 apiece,

period. The settlement class counsel had

never complained about, or so far as

appears knew anything about, the rapid

refunds, and indeed Harris testified that

the Peterson class was intended to be

excluded from the settlement. "Rapid

Refunds" are mentioned in the release

only because the term is sometimes used

to describe refund anticipation loans, an

entirely different practice from Block’s

promise of a rapid refund. Whatever

injury the promise caused Block’s

customers is not measured by the $15

award, which was an estimate of the

injury inflicted by violations connected

with refund anticipation loans. The

Peterson class was included in the

settlement as a result of a purely

semantic coincidence.

 Another class that got swept up in the

settlement as it were accidentally, the

Carbajal class, was complaining about the

defendants’ "intercepting" IRS refunds in

order to offset debts owed by the

customer on previous refund anticipation

loans. Block would apply to the IRS for a

refund for its customer but direct that

the refund be paid to it, and it would

then deduct whatever the customer owed it

and its partner lending institutions and

forward the balance (if any) to the

customer. This practice was distinct from

nondisclosure, misrepresentation, and

other alleged wrongs concerning the

making of refund anticipation loans. The

relation was closer than in the case of

the rapid refunds, because the
interception practice, though not

involving a loan as such, involved an

effort to collect debts based on past

refund anticipation loans. But the $15

damages award that the members of the

Carbajal class received as part of the

settlement that the district judge

approved was just as unrelated to

whatever injury the interception

inflicted on them.

 All things considered, we conclude that

the district judge abused his discretion

in approving the settlement. Because of

this conclusion, the other issues raised

by the appeals need not be decided, but

for guidance on remand we will address

the principal ones, which concern

attorneys’ fees. To begin with, we

disapprove the practice (a practice we

had never heard of and can find no case

law concerning) of encouraging or

permitting the submission of fee applica

tions in camera. In the unlikely event

that some confidential information is

contained in the applications, that

information can be whited out. To conceal

the applications and in particular their

bottom line paralyzes objectors, even

though inflated attorneys’ fees are an

endemic problem in class action

litigation and the fee applications of

such attorneys must therefore be given

beady-eyed scrutiny by the district

judge. Gunter v. Ridgewood Energy Corp.,

223 F.3d 190, 192 (3d Cir. 2000); 7B

Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller &

Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and

Procedure sec. 1803, pp. 510-11 (2d ed.

1986). Second, class counsel’s

compensation must be proportioned to the

incremental benefits they confer on the

class, not the total benefits. Supposing

that with absolutely minimal effort the

class counsel could, as appears to be the

case, have obtained a settlement for $20

million back in 1997 when they met with

Rublin, the question would be how much

they should be rewarded for having pushed

the settlement up to $25 million. Surely

not the $4.25 million that the judge

pursuant to the agreement between the

parties to the settlement awarded,

especially since the class counsel, but

for prodding by the judge, would have

settled for less than Rublin appears to

have been prepared to offer years

earlier.

 Several lawyers, each representing a
class member, appeared at the fairness

hearing to object to various features of

the proposed settlement, primarily the

reversion which the judge later struck.

They wanted a fee for having conferred a

benefit on the class by arguing

successfully against the reversion. The

judge turned them down.

 An initial question is whether we have

jurisdiction of their appeals, since

their clients, although members of the

class, were denied intervention in the

district court and are not appealing that

denial. These plaintiffs say they have no

reason to be parties at this stage

because they are content with the revised

settlement, which axed the reversion.

Ordinarily only a party to a litigation,

including a class action, can appeal.

Marino v. Ortiz, 484 U.S. 301, 304 (1988)

(per curiam); Karcher v. May, 484 U.S.

72, 77 (1987); In re Navigant Consulting,

Inc., Securities Litigation, 275 F.3d

616, 617-18 (7th Cir. 2001). (Not all

courts agree that a class member can

appeal only if he has intervened and thus

become a named party; the line up is

reviewed in Scardelletti v. Debarr, 265

F.3d 195, 205-06, 209 (4th Cir.), cert.

granted, 122 S. Ct. 663 (2001).) But to

this as to most legal generalizations

there are exceptions--see, e.g., United

States Catholic Conference v. Abortion

Rights Mobilization, Inc., 487 U.S. 72,

76 (1988), recognizing the right of

third-person witnesses, not named parties

to the case, to appeal from a contempt

citation for noncompliance with subpoenas

served on them by a named party--most

relevantly for cases in which a lawyer

appeals from a sanction imposed on him,

Vollmer v. Publishers Clearing House, 248

F.3d 698, 701, 705, 711 (7th Cir. 2001);

Corroon v. Reeve, 258 F.3d 86, 88, 90, 92

(2d Cir. 2001), or from the denial of a

motion for fees. Gaskill v. Gordon, 160

F.3d 361, 362-63 (7th Cir. 1998); Florin

v. Nationsbank of Georgia, N.A., 34 F.3d

560, 562 and n. 1 (7th Cir. 1994); In re

Continental Illinois Securities

Litigation, 962 F.2d 566, 568 (7th Cir.

1992). The lawyer doesn’t have to move to

intervene in the district court in order

to appeal to us; nor does the objector

have to move to intervene in order to

appeal the lawyer’s fee. Powers v.

Eichen, 229 F.3d 1249, 1251, 1256 (9th

Cir. 2000); Rosenbaum v. MacAllister, 64

F.3d 1439, 1441-43 (10th Cir. 1995); see
also Zucker v. Occidental Petroleum

Corp., 192 F.3d 1323, 1326 (9th Cir.

1999). We just the other day rejected the

proposition that a lawyer must be made a

party before he can be ordered to

disgorge a fee wrongfully retained, and

though not a party the lawyer was

permitted to appeal the order. Dale M. v.

Board of Education, 282 F.3d 984 (7th

Cir. 2002).

 The situation here is similar. The

clients being content with the

settlement, the only issue is whether

their lawyers are entitled to a fee. They

are in effect volunteer lawyers for the

class asking that they receive a fee for

their efforts. We think they can appeal

without their clients’ having intervened.

Intervention would not only be a

pointless formality. Powers v. Eichen,

supra, 229 F.3d at 1256. It would be a

futile one. For the clients, being

content with the settlement, could not

appeal even if they were parties, because

they seek no relief from us and standing

must continue throughout the entire

litigation. United States Parole Comm’n

v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 397 (1980);

Levin v. Attorney Registration &

Disciplinary Comm’n, 74 F.3d 763, 767 and

n. 5 (7th Cir. 1996); Chong v. District

Director, INS, 264 F.3d 378, 383-84 (3d

Cir. 2001). Unless the lawyers can

appeal, there will be no appellate review

of the district judge’s decision not to

award them fees.

 It would be a different case if the

claim for attorneys’ fees rested on a

fee-shifting statute, so that the money

would come from the defendants and not

diminish the $25 million fund. Then the

objectors would have to intervene,

because it is the litigants rather than

the lawyers who hold the entitlement to

awards under fee-shifting statutes.

Central States, Southeast & Southwest

Areas Pension Fund v. Central Cartage

Co., 76 F.3d 114, 116 (7th Cir. 1996).

The objectors might be obliged by

contract to pay these sums to their

lawyers, but that would not make the

lawyers parties. To be entitled to

appeal, however, the objectors would have

to become parties.

 But in fact the lawyers are claiming

fees in their own name, so that any fees

awarded to them would come from the $25
million fund under the common-fund

doctrine. When a lawyer lays claim to a

portion of the kitty, he becomes a real

party in interest; and should he

therefore have to intervene--not only for

purposes of taking an appeal himself but

so that he will be an appellee if class

members oppose the district court’s award

and want the money back? We do not see

why a person who has received money by

order of the district court at the

expense of a party must be named as a

party in order for the party harmed by

the order to be able to appeal. After

all, a defendant could appeal from a fee

award to the plaintiff’s lawyer that he

thought excessive.

 We need not pursue this interesting

question, on which the Supreme Court may

shed considerable light when it decides

the Scardelletti case, any further, since

the claim for attorneys’ fees falls with

the settlement. But assuming these

lawyers can appeal, let us for the sake

of guidance for the future consider the

merits of their appeals.

 The law generally does not allow good

Samaritans to claim a legally enforceable

reward for their deeds. Nadalin v.

Automobile Recovery Bureau, Inc., 169

F.3d 1084, 1086 (7th Cir. 1999); Saul

Levmore, "Explaining Restitution," 71 Va.

L. Rev. 65 (1985). But when professionals

render valuable albeit not bargained-for

services in circumstances in which high

transaction costs prevent negotiation and

voluntary agreement, the law does allow

them to claim a reasonable professional

fee from the recipient of their services.

Gaskill v. Gordon, supra, 160 F.3d at

363; In re Continental Illinois

Securities Litigation, supra, 962 F.2d at

568, 571; Levmore, supra, at 66. That is

the situation of objectors to a class

action settlement. It is desirable to

have as broad a range of participants in

the fairness hearing as possible because

of the risk of collusion over attorneys’

fees and the terms of settlement

generally. This participation is

encouraged by permitting lawyers who

contribute materially to the proceeding

to obtain a fee. Gottlieb v. Barry, 43

F.3d 474, 490-91 (10th Cir. 1994); Fisher

v. Procter & Gamble Mfg. Co., 613 F.2d

527, 547 (5th Cir. 1980); White v.

Auerbach, 500 F.2d 822, 828 (2d Cir.

1974).
 The principles of restitution that

authorize such a result also require,

however, that the objectors produce

animprovement in the settlement worth

more than the fee they are seeking;

otherwise they have rendered no benefit

to the class. Class Plaintiffs v. Jaffe &

Schlesinger, P.A., 19 F.3d 1306, 1308

(9th Cir. 1994) (per curiam); see also

Stewart v. General Motors Corp., supra,

756 F.2d at 1294; Petrovic v. Amoco Oil

Co., 200 F.3d 1140, 1156 (8th Cir. 1999).

 The judge denied a fee to the objectors

in part on the ground that he had already

decided, without telling anybody, not to

accept the reversion. But objectors must

decide whether to object without knowing

what objections may be moot because they

have already occurred to the judge. A

compelling ground for denying the

objectors a fee in this case does exist,

however. It is that other lawyers at the

hearing, notably counsel for the Carnegie

intervenors, had vigorously objected to

the reversion; the objectors added

nothing. In re Synthroid Marketing

Litigation, 264 F.3d 712, 722-23 (7th

Cir. 2001). For similar reasons the judge

was correct to deny intervention to class

representatives (Mitchell, Westfall,

Ramsey, Jones, Vaughn, and Longo) whose

arguments had already been covered by

existing plaintiffs. Fed. R. Civ. P.

24(a)(2).

 The judgment approving the class action

settlement and awarding attorneys’ fees

is reversed and the case is remanded to

the district court for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The injunction against the Texas class

action must be vacated in light of our

disapproval of the settlement. See

Bradford Exchange v. Trein’s Exchange,

600 F.2d 99, 101-02 (7th Cir. 1979) (per

curiam); cf. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk

County Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 383 (1992); In

re Hendrix, 986 F.2d 195, 198 (7th Cir.

1993). The action of a panel of this

court in upholding the district judge’s

interlocutory injunction against the

Texas suit, entered while settlement

negotiations were in process, does not

bear on the validity of the final

injunction, which is an incident of the

settlement agreement and falls with it.

 Finally, we have decided that Circuit
Rule 36 shall apply on remand.

Reversed and Remanded.