TOTM

Richard Painter on Litigation Financing and Insurance

Fifteen years ago I published an article urging that non-lawyers be allowed to finance the cost of legal representation in return for a percentage of a judgment or settlement if the plaintiff is successful.    Common law prohibitions on champerty were widely believed at the time to prohibit third parties from buying an interest in litigation.  Few such litigation funding arrangements were available for plaintiffs, and lawyers perhaps predictably looked upon them with disfavor.   See Litigating on a Contingency:  A Monopoly of Champions or a Market for Champerty?, 70 Chicago-Kent Law Review 625-697 (1995) (Symposium on Fee Shifting).

Read the full piece here.