Free US Law Dictionary

Champerty

In common law jurisdictions, maintenance is the intermeddling of an uninterested party to encourage a lawsuit.[1] It is "A taking in hand, a bearing up or upholding of quarrels or sides, to the disturbance of the common right."[2]

Champerty is the maintenance of a person in a lawsuit on condition that the subject matter of the action is to be shared with the maintainer.[3] Among laypersons, this is known as "buying into someone else's lawsuit."[citation needed]

At common law, maintenance and champerty were both crimes and torts, as was barratry, the bringing of vexatious litigation. This is generally no longer so as during the nineteenth century, the development of legal ethics tended to obviate the risks to the public, particularly after the scandal of the Swynfen will case (1856-1864).[4] However, the prinicples are relevant to modern contingent fee agreements between a lawyer and a client and to the assignment by a plaintiff of his rights in a lawsuit to someone with no connection to the case. Champertous contracts can still, depending on jurisdiction, be void for public policy or attract liability for costs.