Francois- I was thinking more in terms of finding several test case around the USA... I'm sure that proscecuting several individual elders or BOE's would be effective for the following reasons...
Individual cases would spread the media coverage to multiple markets
Eggs in one basket threory... Class action suits take a long time to settle and if you loose -- Finding several good individual suite increasing the odds of getting a winner...Class action suits seem to loose media attention as they drag on too.
Quality of defence--The WT has the 'guns' to fight one or two 'big' cases... Spreading the cases out against individuals whould keep the WT off balance...They would have to select the cases that have the highest profile and greatest chance to settle out of court or win outright in trial.
The lower profile cases--in my opinion Brooklyn will leave those elders and BOE's twisting in the wind---further demoralization of the R&F would be highly possible.
Remember the NAACP--Brown V Kansas was selected as their battle ground for a reason... they sued several boards locally but they felt Brown was the one to take to the top, so to speak. Using some good stratagy the NAACP got what they wanted, a high profile case that they could win.
We are really just another 'civil action' out there in 'Ceasaers' eyes...At best maybe we can get some legislation that requires abuse reporting in all 50 states and a requirment for all religous councilors to carry malpractice insurnace.. Seems like we should be able to get some help from the ACLU or somebody as many of these cases have a ring of human rights abuses,many of the cased pending seem to have a racketering angle against the WT.
WE have just let Pandora out of the box...let the festivities commence!