Law Department Management Blog
Up-to-date detail on two third-party funders of litigation comes from ALM’s Litigation 2010, Spring 2010 at 23. The article traces the background, start-up, and current operations of two of the best-known funders: Burford Capital Limited and Juridica. Juridica has raised a total of $180 million dollars on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) while Buford has raised about $130 million. Both investment funds have very selectively invested in a few dozen situations, mostly US litigation but some arbitrations.
The RAND Corporation last month published a study of third-party financing of disputes. The article does not venture an opinion on whether the field will remain small, a niche, or will transform litigation (See my post of May 21, 2009: lawsuit financing by groups with 8 references.).
Of particular interest to this blogger is that one of the two founders of Buford Capital, Christopher Bogart, is not only a former partner at Cravath but also a former Deputy General Counsel at Time Warner. So an in-house lawyer is part of the new field of litigation funding by investors.