How can litigation finance help lawyers and their clients achieve business and litigation objectives? Who are the parties involved? What are the steps in the funding process? What are the various investment structures? What is the role of litigation finance firms in case strategy? What is the difference between consumer and commercial lawsuit funding? How can third-party funding promote access to justice?
Litigation Finance Basics
It’s Never Too Early or Too Late to Seek Litigation Finance
Marla Decker
In light of the rapidly shifting economy, many law firms and their clients are facing greater challenges in financing meritorious litigation. Litigants are taking stock of their cases and the path forward, mindful of increased pressure to reduce and conserve budgets. Law firms are assessing potentially heightened collection risks. In this uncertain environment, litigation funders like Lake Whillans stand ready to serve as a resource to both claimholders and law firms.
If you lead a corporation that holds monetizable litigation claims, the potential advantages of litigation finance as a risk-reduction mechanism merit careful attention. Similarly, if you lead a law firm that is bringing claims on a contingent fee basis, you may wish to explore the benefits of receiving upfront, non-recourse funding collateralized by a portfolio of the firm’s contingent fee cases.
Read MoreLitigation Finance 2020: ‘Flavors’ Of Litigation Finance
Marla Decker
The growth of litigation finance (also known as litigation funding or third-party funding) has been a hot topic in recent years, but even if you’ve heard of the general concept, you may be less familiar with the range of litigation finance options. Much like other forms of finance, there are different structures that can meet the needs of a particular claimholder, matter, and/or firm. This article will review the basic features of a litigation finance investment and describe some of the different structures or “flavors” of litigation finance. Lake Whillans has and will transact in any of the “flavors” described below.
Read MoreLitigation Finance 2020: Why Do Corporate Legal Departments Turn To Litigation Funding?
Marla Decker
In our first article in this series, we explained what litigation financing is and the various structures or “flavors” that are typical in the market. But why are companies using it? Is it only cash-strapped companies that look to litigation funding? While filling the budget gap is certainly one benefit, there are multiple reasons why litigation finance is gaining in popularity with corporate general counsels’ offices
Read MoreLitigation Funding? Hardly Relevant (To Claims and Defenses That Is).
Marla Decker
A magistrate judge in New Jersey overseeing an MDL related to an allegedly contaminated pharmaceutical drug recently denied the defendants’ request for discovery into the plaintiffs’ potential litigation funding arrangements. While the denial of litigation funding discovery is not unique, the decision–which holds that the sought-after information was not relevant to the claims or defenses–is significant in that it leaves no doubt that, without more, requests for fishing expeditions into litigation funding arrangements fail when examined. And that the trend in the case law is in agreement.
Read MoreThird-party Funding in the Middle East: A Step-by-step Process
Marla Decker
Lake Whillans closely follows developments around the world related to third-party funding. As third-party funding becomes mainstream in jurisdictions like the U.K. and U.S., it is not surprising that other jurisdictions have begun to pass laws that expressly permit third-party funding, effectively recognizing the utility of third-party funding to claimholders, the lack of detrimental effect to a legal system, and the fact that third-party funding helps make the jurisdiction an attractive forum for resolving commercial disputes. Jurisdictions in the Middle East have recently followed the trend, and we asked Thomas Snider, Head of Arbitration for Al Tamimi & Company, the largest law firm in the Middle East, and his colleagues, Jane Rahman and Khushboo Shahdadpuri, to educate us on the status of third-party funding in the Middle East
Read MoreInternational Arbitration and Third Party Funding in Hong Kong: Q&A with the Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre
Marla Decker
As jurisdictions compete for status as premier international arbitration hubs, a differentiating factor (or, increasingly, a must-have factor) is whether the jurisdiction’s legal framework allows for third party funding in arbitrations seated there. We have followed the development towards a more permissive environment for third party funding in Asia closely, recently asking members of Freshfields’ international arbitration group to provide an update on developments in Asia with Singapore and Hong Kong leading the charge. Today, we focus in on Hong Kong, which on February 1, 2019, put into effect previously enacted legislative changes to permit third party funding in international arbitration. In connection with this development, the Ministry of Justice has released the Code of Practice for Third Party Funding of Arbitration, which sets out practices and standards with which third party funders are expected to comply in connection with funding of arbitrations in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC”) amended its rules to harmonize with the legislative changes and to address disclosure requirements, confidentiality, and costs in third party funded matters. We asked Sarah Grimmer, Secretary-General of HKIAC to discuss the changing landscape.
Read MoreHow to Choose A Litigation Funder
Marla Decker
It’s 2019, and litigation finance is going to play prominently in the legal industry this year. Lawyers and claimholders increasingly desire the utility and flexibility of what litigation finance can offer. As demand for litigation funding has increased, so too has the number of litigation funders in the market. Some funders (like Lake Whillans) focus exclusively on litigation financing, while others have added litigation finance investments as part of a larger investment portfolio. The field has matured to the point that Chambers & Partners ranked litigation funders in the U.S. and U.K. last year. (Lake Whillans as a firm, and Lake Whillans co-founder Boaz Weinstein individually, each were ranked among the top bands in the 2018 Chambers rankings).
So if you are a claimholder, a lawyer seeking funding for your client or firm, or law firm management trying to differentiate between funders, how should you be analyzing the options? We suggest there are key differences among funders that you can use to compare:
Read MoreThird-party funding in Asia: Arrived, and Set to Thrive
Marla Decker
Over the last few years, third‑party funding has become a hot topic in Asia. As we previously reported, in 2017, the two leading arbitral seats in Asia, Singapore and Hong Kong, enacted legislation that opened the door to third‑party funding of arbitration proceedings. As well as fundamentally changing the legal framework in those jurisdictions, these developments made third‑party funding a major talking point across Asia. In this article, we reflect on the current landscape for third‑party funding in the region.
Read MoreUsing Litigation Finance to Close the Gender Gap in Law
Marla Decker
The advancement of women lawyers has been a discussion in the legal profession for decades, and one that I’ve followed closely. As a young associate, I was encouraged by the efforts underway at various firms to attract and promote women into senior positions. While women were admittedly underrepresented in leadership roles at law firms, the tide seemed about to shift.
Read MoreTurning the Law Department Into a Profit Center
Lee Drucker
Perhaps the biggest trend in corporate law departments over the past few years has been the rise of the legal ops function. Ten years ago there were only a handful of law department operations professionals (LDOs), typically only in large sophisticated organizations. Today, about a third of the Fortune 500 law departments have at least one professional in such a role. All these professionals have one thing in common: their job is to bring business discipline to the legal function.
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