Posts Tagged ‘champerty’

The New Age of Litigation Finance

On Thursday I was a panelist at the Federalist Society National Lawyers’ Conference discussing the rapid rise of litigation funding — specifically, well-capitalized firms that advance money to plaintiffs in commercial high-stakes litigation, often in exchange for a share in the proceeds. (A separate wing of the litigation finance business, which was not the panel’s primary focus, advances smallish sums to individual injury plaintiffs at high interest rates in a sort of analogue of payday lending.)

My opening remarks speculate about the future emergence of divorce trolls — excuse me, “marital rights assertion entities” — set up to buy out an ex-spouse’s stake in ongoing matrimonial strife and play it for maximum extraction value. While no one has yet rolled out that kind of business model, note that outside financiers have indeed begun to fund divorce litigation.

More seriously, I went on to argue that the rise of patent trolls and mass tort operations prefigures problems we are likely to see emerge from litigation finance, from the encouragement given to low-value claims to a settlement process skewed by the interests of the funders rather than the original disputants, and suggest that the age-old rules against champerty, maintenance and barratry might owe something to an appreciation of such dangers. A link to the video is here.

More: Check out Roger Pilon’s post on what else Cato people were up to at the Mayflower last week.

“Judge rules Righthaven lacks standing to sue, threatens sanctions over misrepresentations”

Copyright troll tripped up:

A federal judge in Las Vegas today issued a potentially devastating ruling against copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC, finding it doesn’t have standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, that it has misled the court and threatening to impose sanctions against Righthaven. … [U.S. District Court Judge Roger] Hunt’s ruling today came in a 2010 Righthaven lawsuit against the Democratic Underground, operator of a big political website.

One of DU’s message board posters had reprinted without permission, but with link and credit, four paragraphs’ worth of an article under copyright to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is one of a number of newspapers with working agreements with RightHaven. And this part’s interesting:

In their counterclaim [which Judge Hunt allowed to proceed], attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital free speech group based in San Francisco, hit Righthaven and Stephens Media with allegations of barratry (the alleged improper incitement of litigation); and champerty (an allegedly improper relationship between one funding and one pursuing a lawsuit)….

Some fans of entrepreneurial lawyering in the academy and elsewhere have sought to portray rules against barratry and champerty as wrongheaded survivals of a much older approach to the role of the legal profession. But it looks as if EFF — no one’s idea of a Blackstone-reading antiquarian club — just put those rules to powerful use. [Las Vegas Sun]

P.S. Bloggers who settled wonder: can we get our money back?

February 15 roundup

  • Artist Jeff Koons drops his lawsuit against maker of resin balloon dogs [Legal Blog Watch, BoingBoing, earlier]
  • The car pile-up happened fast, the come-ons from lawyers and chiropractors were almost as speedy [Adler/Volokh]
  • Andrew Thomas update: former Maricopa County Attorney intends to sue former bar president and ethics investigators [ABA Journal, Coyote]
  • Litigation finance: “Poker Magnate, London Firm Bankroll Chevron Plaintiffs” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Case for champerty pleaded before ethics commission [Podgers, ABA Journal] The experience in Australia [Karlsgodt]
  • Judge: Kansas City stadium mascot hot dog toss suit can go to trial [OnPoint News, earlier]
  • How National Enquirer matched wits with John Edwards to expose scandal [David Perel, HuffPo] More: Justice Department building a case? [AW]
  • “The Whooping Cough’s Unnecessary Return” [Paul Howard/Jim Copland, City Journal] Theodore Dalrymple reviews new Paul Offit vaccine book [same]
  • Many trial lawyers yank funding from Ralph Nader operations in pique over his role in depriving Al Gore of White House victory [ten years ago on Overlawyered]

Righthaven update

Having defeated a Righthaven suit filed against the political site Democratic Underground, lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation now would like the court to award attorneys’ fees. [Kravets, Wired “Threat Level”] Among the claims advanced by EFF in that case were that Righthaven had engaged in barratry and champerty, concepts familiar to many Overlawyered readers if in desuetude in some sectors of the legal world these days. It had also pointed out that some of the newspapers facilitating the suits themselves, or websites they operate, appear to engage in or encourage practices that might be considered wrongful under Righthaven’s theories, such as “cutting and pasting” potentially copyrighted text.

Separately, Groklaw has analyzed what happened in one sample case. Of the furor aroused by the lawsuits, “I think the benefits are worth the negative publicity,” said one executive with the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s owner at a September panel.

The entrepreneurial copyright litigation firm has also now signed up the Denver Post as a new affiliate, and has made a splash by suing the owner of the Drudge Report over its use of a photo allegedly swiped from the Colorado newspaper, an offense (if proven) presumably not as readily defended under “fair use” doctrine as some others over which it has sued.

NY Times on litigation finance

Yes, it’s an informative piece, and yes, it does explore some of the drawbacks and abuses, particularly for clients whose lawsuits are being financed by banks, hedge funds or other investors. But the Times (with its reporting partner, the Center for Public Integrity) also buys in to what David Oliver correctly identifies as a big, central fallacy when it claims that the influx of money into plaintiff’s cases “is helping to ensure that cases are decided by merit rather than resources.” So when an outside investor makes it possible for, say, a patent troll to launch mass royalty demands on behalf of marginal patents, or a mass tort firm to roll out scientifically dubious toxic-injury claims, or an Indian tribe to assert 200-year-old land claims against nearby farmers for casino-seeking leverage, it means that cases are now suddenly being resolved on a basis that more closely tracks the merits? Check your premises, please. More: Dan Fisher/Forbes and Ted Frank/PoL, and earlier on Counsel Financial.

P.S. Good round table at New York Times “Room for Debate”, check out in particular the Paul Rubin and Richard Epstein contributions; Kenneth Anderson/Volokh (“insurable interest”).

New at Point of Law

Things you’re missing if you’re not reading my other site:

New at Point of Law

Stories you may be missing if you’re not following our sister site: