Law Commons^™

Whose Claim Is This Anyway? Third Party Litigation Funding, Maya Steinitz

Faculty Scholarship

Third party litigation funding, or litigation finance, is a new industry composed of institutional investors who invest in litigation by providing finance in return for an ownership stake in a legal claim and a contingency in the recovery. Its emergence has been recognized as one of the most significant developments in civil litigation today. It will transform access to justice, and affect numerous areas of the law including corporate law, torts, intellectual property, environmental law, employment law and international law. Hailing from the U.K. and Australia, the practice is de facto prohibited in the U.S., largely through ethical rules disallowing …