Welcome to Law.com Class Actions: Critical Mass, a weekly briefing for class action and mass tort attorneys.

This week: Judges may be a step closer to having standardized expectations early on in multidistrict litigation. A federal judge in Delaware approved the Boy Scouts of America's bankruptcy plan, but objectors are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Facebook is one step closer to settling the Cambridge Analytica litigation.

I'm Ellen Bardash, filling in for Amanda Bronstad. Feel free to email me with your input at [email protected], or get in touch with Amanda at [email protected]. You can follow me on Twitter @Dellenware and Amanda @abronstadlaw.

Seal of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (Credit: United States JPML) The seal of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (Credit: United States JPML)

Advisory Committee Recommends First Federal MDL Rule

Judges overseeing MDLs may soon have new guidance on how to manage their dockets, if a rule proposed last week by the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules becomes the standard. The version of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1 the committee voted on took a step back from previous iterations and laid out what should be covered during initial status conferences.