Follow the Funding

Within the legal community, third party litigation funding (TPLF) is either lauded for its potential to expand access to justice, or decried for how it has further inundated society with lawsuits. Most, though, agree that TPLF has had a seismic impact on the litigation landscape.

TPLF -- an arrangement where outside parties pay for litigation costs in exchange for a share of any award recovered down the road -- allows claimants to retain more expensive experts and litigation vendors, undergo costly (and, at times, questionable) medical treatments, and prolong litigation with costly discovery and motion practice.

TPLF has had a particularly significant impact on settlement negotiations, as plaintiffs receiving TPLF are disincentivized from accepting otherwise reasonable offers to make up for the portion of the award that will be paid to the funder.