Plaintiffs seeking litigation finance

Overview

Reasons plaintiffs consider using litigation finance

Litigation finance allows entities to pursue valuable litigation without having to pay some or all of the litigation costs. Instead, litigation funders extend financing to plaintiffs to pay for the litigation costs. Money from litigation finance also may be used by the plaintiff for other corporate purposes. In fact, a litigation finance arrangement could allow a plaintiff to receive some money upfront to de-risk its situation and to pay all litigation costs, with the plaintiff maintaining an interest in the litigation that could result in a substantial recovery upon a later settlement or judgment.

Typically, litigation funding is extended to plaintiffs on a non-recourse basis with litigation funders receiving a portion of proceeds from successful judgments or settlements. If the plaintiff is not successful in the litigation or arbitration, the litigation funder does not receive any recovery.

We understand the litigation finance industry

Based on our experience, McDonald Hopkins understands that:

• There are key differences among litigation funders, including each litigation funder’s resources, preferred size of investments, focus on particular areas of the law for investments, structure, process, and timing;
• Litigation funders prefer cases to have certain characteristics; and
• Litigation finance presents a number of ethical and legal considerations, including: attorney-client relationship issues; confidentiality issues; disclosure requirements; old traditional laws concerning champerty, maintenance, and barratry; and usury laws.

We follow an extensive process to match clients with litigation funders

The Litigation Finance Group’s extensive process combines our experience and relationships in the industry and those included in our proprietary database, which leads to competitive financial and non-financial terms of litigation finance agreements. The Litigation Finance Group understands how to maximize the likelihood of securing litigation funding on the best terms available.

When assessing which litigation funder is best able to meet the needs of our clients, we focus on a number of factors. Some of these factors include:

• Amount of capital needed
• Timing of when capital is needed
• Expected timeline of the litigation and the capital needs
• The reason the client is seeking litigation funding
• The type of litigation for which funding is being sought
• The proposed funding structure that will benefit the client

We help our clients from the beginning to the end of the litigation finance process

The Litigation Finance Group helps our clients:

• Gain general knowledge about litigation finance
• Understand the extent to which their litigation is appropriate for litigation finance
• Develop a strategy to maximize the likelihood of consummating a litigation finance arrangement on the best possible economic and non-economic terms
• Prepare to meet with litigation funders
• Meet the litigation funders best situated to provide funding
• Negotiate with litigation funders
• Document litigation finance arrangements
• Communicate with litigation funders throughout the litigation or arbitration process

​The Litigation Finance Group helps its clients secure litigation finance as part of representing them in underlying disputes as well as solely with respect to securing litigation finance if the client has separate counsel to address the underlying dispute.