third-party funding

Litigation Finance: 10 Questions to Help Advise Your Client

Lee Drucker

We, at Lake Whillans, have been writing a lot about litigation finance in order to provide lawyers and claimholders with a framework for thinking about its use and potential benefits. I thought it might be time to take a break from writing, and provide an analytics tool to help claimholders and their lawyers determine whether litigation finance makes sense for the business.

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Build a Litigation Finance Company (Part 2)

Lee Drucker

As we continue to discuss the benefits of using litigation funding, how it can help companies grow, and how it provides new paths for entrepreneurial litigators, I have begun to explain how we at Lake Whillans think about building a quality litigation funding company. The purpose of this series of posts is to share a little about our vision of litigation finance and how we are building our company. If there are any topics that you might be curious to learn about just email me at drucker@lakewhillans.com.

In my last post on the topic, I discussed some of the less obvious benefits that are derived from selecting profitable investments. Today, I want to discuss how we think about the Lake Whillans ‘brand’.

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Litigation Finance & Evolving Litigation: the Julia Woog Interview

Lee Drucker

The second of a series of interviews with top litigators discussing their practice, the evolving legal industry, and litigation finance:

In terms of funding alternatives, the introduction of third party litigation funding really offers an expansion of the contingency model. Lawyers have long been taking cases that have merit, but would not otherwise get to the courtroom, on a contingency basis. But a meritorious case still might not go forward with the traditional contingency option. For some cases the costs (as opposed to legal fees) might be so high that the clients can’t afford to cover even that piece of the litigation—particularly in this digital age when document discovery is often voluminous and discovery costs extensive. And in other instances, a law firm that sees merit in a case might not be able to take it on because of the firm’s own case load or cash flow concerns. The arrival of litigation finance in the market helps pick up these cases and means that a strong claim should never be frustrated just for a plaintiff’s lack of resources.

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How Litigation Finance Was used by Yetter Coleman to Save a Business

Lee Drucker

The first of a series of interviews with top litigators discussing their practice, the evolving legal industry, and litigation finance.

In 2013, we met the principals of Lake Whillans, one of the leaders in litigation finance. They introduced us to Business Logic Corp., a small but innovative software company in Chicago. For years, BLC had worked well with one of the largest companies in Chicago to roll out an online advice solution for employer retirement programs. Then, BLC believed, its former partner stole its trade secrets and used them to implement “new” programs based on BLC’s hard work. Defended by a blue-chip law firm, Morningstar, after years of litigation, had worn down BLC to the point of abandoning its claims, declaring bankruptcy, or finding outside funding.

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Life Science Entrepreneurs Facing Litigation

Lee Drucker

Developing a new product or business in the healthcare space is rife with complexity. Whether it be creating a new medical device, an innovative pharmaceutical, or a digital health business, healthcare entrepreneurs must identify a valuable opportunity, assemble a dedicated and talented team, potentially invest years and abundant resources in R&D – all of which may occur before seeking FDA approval, finding manufacturing partners, or even knowing whether you have a viable product for the market. Given these challenges, the last thing on a CEO’s mind when raising capital or finding partners to navigate these complexities may be how to defend the company if one of these partnerships goes sideways. But what happens if one of these partnerships does go awry? If a partner, having learned the secrets of a company’s technology determines to take that knowledge for itself? (Last week, F. Nicholas Franano, MD, a radiologist and chief executive officer at two cardiovascular medical device companies, Flow Forward Medical and Metactive Medical discussed how companies can best protect themselves when entering these partnerships.) Or if a competitor takes action to derail the company? (here is an in-depth article about a company in that position). Is all of the work of the talented and dedicated people that helped drive the initial success of the company lost?

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Lake Whillans Investment Featured in MEDCITY News

Lee Drucker

An in depth article about a fabulous entrepreneur and promising cancer therapy almost derailed by impropriety. This was one of Lake Whillans’ first investments:

http://medcitynews.com/2015/03/entrepreneur-nearly-lost-company-heres-litigation-finance-helped-fight-back/

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Litigation Finance & Private Equity

Lee Drucker

About a month ago, I discussed the venture capital landscape, and why litigation funders are attractive partners for VCs and VC-backed companies in need of resources to adequately defend their businesses. A similar, but distinct, phenomenon exists in private equity.

Private equity firms (which invest in a broader class of companies and employ a wider array of value generating techniques than venture capital) share some common characteristics that make litigation finance a useful product within the industry.

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Delaware Decision on Work Product for Funding Documents

Lee Drucker

The Delaware Chancery Court handed down a favorable decision on work product protection for funding documents last week. Here are links to an article discussing the decision and the decision itself.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/litigation-finance-communications-protected-business-of-law

http://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/court-of-chancery/2015/ca-7841-vcp.html

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The best way for companies and their counsel to determine if litigation finance is an attractive option is to discuss it with us.