Third-Party Litigation Finance
Academic analysis of the legality and ethics of claim investing.
Summary
The reference has not verified this book in detail; the summary states only what the title, author and subject establish.
Anthony Sebok teaches at Cardozo Law School and has written extensively on the law and theory of litigation finance, including the historical development of the doctrines that once prohibited it.
His published work in this area addresses the moral and legal objections to funding: the claim that assigning an interest in a lawsuit is inherently improper, which he traces to the medieval doctrines of maintenance and champerty and argues rests on conditions that no longer apply; the argument that funding increases meritless litigation, which he examines against the funders' own commercial incentive to fund only claims likely to succeed; and the questions of control, disclosure and consumer protection in the different segments of the market, which include commercial funding of large claims, consumer advances to individual plaintiffs, and portfolio funding of law firms.
The reference has not verified this particular volume's contents. Its subject and author are established, and this entry describes Sebok's established scholarly positions rather than a close reading of the text. Readers should go to the work itself for its argument.
Key takeaways 6
- Doctrines prohibiting the assignment of interests in lawsuits originated in medieval conditions that no longer apply.
- Funders have a commercial incentive to fund only claims likely to succeed, which works against the claim that funding increases meritless litigation.
- The market divides into commercial funding of large claims, consumer advances to individual plaintiffs and portfolio funding of law firms, each raising different issues.
- Consumer litigation advances raise pricing and disclosure questions that commercial funding does not.
- Control of settlement decisions is the central contractual question in any funding arrangement.
- The reference has not verified this volume's contents and this entry describes the author's established positions.
Who should read it
Lawyers and investors in litigation finance interested in the doctrinal and normative arguments, with the caveat that this entry is not verified in detail.
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Where it sits in the reference 1
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