Litigation

Lawsuit Funding in India

By David Austin and Barry Goldberg

Interesting comment in this article.  This person comments that CFAs (Contingency Fee Agreements) are a form of litigation funding.  At some level he is correct, because the lawyer will provide funds to move the case forward.  In the US at least the lawyers are limited to funding the case itself.  Lawsuit funding goes a step further and provides funding directly to the plaintiff to pay for things like mortgages or other expenses AND can be used to fund the lawsuit directly.

He condemned CFAs as "a half-cocked form of private funding" brought in by the Government, which are "deficient, if not fatally flawed, due to an unprincipled conflict of interest on the part of the lawyer" where in some cases settlement would be better for the client, but not the lawyer's pocket. Lightman sees litigation funding as an answer to provide better access to justice. "Recently the courts have begun to recognise... that litigation is a business which, like other businesses, requires private funding," he said.

Source:  The Lawyer.com

Full post as published by Cash Flow Solutions Blog on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).