A major shake-up of class action law and litigation funding in New Zealand is being debated.

Legal experts are calling for legislative changes around bringing class action suits to court.

University of Auckland law expert Nikki Chamberlain has completed a research paper into class actions in New Zealand. She told Mike Hosking a legislative review could solve multiple issues which need to be looked at.

"The lack of formal procedural rules means the involved parties are incurring costs and delays. Class action processes would likely be smoother with formal rules in place."

Chamberlain says compared to the likes of Australia and the US, our current rules don't detail how they should function.

"Current problems include a lack of details on who should be the representative plaintive and multiple trial management issues."

Class actions enable large groups of people to band together to take on large, well-resourced entities like the government, banks and insurers.