As we turn the corner into 2020, Bloomberg Law analyzes the results of its own Litigation Finance Survey to account for the challenges and opportunities facing the industry at this pivotal moment.
An LFJ Conversation with Michael Kelley, Partner, Parker Poe
As we turn the corner into 2020, Bloomberg Law analyzes the results of its own Litigation Finance Survey to account for the challenges and opportunities facing the industry at this pivotal moment.
As reported in Bloomberg, litigation finance had a wild year in 2019, and there is a lot to digest going into 2020. Bloomberg recently conducted a litigation finance survey, where they found that disclosure is the top concern for attorneys who have obtained or are interested in obtaining funding. Their survey shows that over 50% of attorneys who have done so are uninformed as to how frequently disclosure has been ordered (and in what contexts).
Another key concern is accounting methodology. This topic was brought to the forefront in the Burford Capital / Muddy Waters saga, and has since become a hot-button issue in the industry. Burford is one of only a handful of publicly-traded funders, and the largest funder in existence; so to have the company shed nearly 50% of its value in a single day is naturally off-putting for investors and would-be investors into the space.
And that brings us to one of the key points of of Bloomberg’s survey findings: there is room for industry growth. The survey found that interest in funding outpaces current funding levels. Bloomberg points to Legalist’s and Validity’s funding rounds as two of the top-10 funding rounds in Legal Tech for 3Q19.
