Burford Submits Litigation Finance Response to US Senators
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Litigation finance as practiced by Burford is simply conventional commercial financing for participants in the legal system – both law firms and the business clients they represent. As with any other form of commercial finance, litigation finance only exists because there is demand for it from its users – in Burford’s case, typically small and medium-sized businesses, Fortune 500 companies, and AmLaw 100 law firms. That demand exists for various commercial reasons, but a common theme underlying all those reasons is that litigation is very expensive and can be financially burdensome even for our very largest companies.
Litigation finance is neither new nor novel. It has been practiced for decades and on a very large scale with the full knowledge and acceptance of lawmakers, judges and lawyers. A significant part of the civil litigation underway today in American courts—almost certainly a majority of it—involves someone who is not the named party bearing cost for or sharing risk with that party. Burford is quite a small part of a market that includes long-accepted providers of financial solutions to litigants – including law firms who work on contingency or alternative fee arrangements, insurers and a wide variety of institutional capital providers.
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