Third-Party Litigation Financing News

Though third party litigation funding has just started to grab headlines in the U.S., the funding method has been used in Europe for some time.

BlackRobe Capital may have been backed by plenty of high-profile legal talent, but it turns out that wasn't enough to keep the litigation funding firm afloat. On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal reported that BlackRobe is no more, less than two years after we first reported its arrival on the litigation funding scene. 

The founders of BlackRobe Capital Partners LLC are walking away from the litigation-finance firm, citing internal disagreements and a failure to attract enough outside capital from investors.

A bill that would have put caps on what detractors call the “predatory lending” practices of lawsuit lenders was defeated in a Louisiana House of Representatives’ committee.

On Friday, the law firm lender LFG National Capital filed a complaint in federal district court in San Francisco against antitrust plaintiffs' lawyer Joseph Alioto and his firm, The Alioto Law Firm. 

The legal equivalent of the payday loan is coming under political pressure. Lawmakers in a number of states are debating whether to put new limits on the burgeoning business of lending money to people involved in lawsuits and collecting when the suits pay out.

The corporate regulator has issued new guidelines warning about conflicts of interest between law firms and litigations funders in an effort to better protect people who take part in major litigation, such as class actions.

Your credit card bill already comes attached to alluringly blank "convenience checks." Your tax preparer tempts you to apply for tax refund loans. You're bombarded with television commercials for payday loans. Now, a relative newcomer to this list of "fast cash" borrowing enticements is beginning to hit critical mass and it suddenly is attracting a high degree of attention from state legislatures. It is called a "lawsuit loan" or, if you are in that business, "lawsuit funding."