A new litigation funder (Ralph Sutton CEO Validity Finance), offered five predictions in a November 27, 2018 article at American Lawyer. His second prediction is below; the same prediction has been made before. Time will tell.
“Defense Funding
“Defense-side litigation funding will begin to emerge as an important segment of the market. While routine financing of litigation risk by corporate law departments is still a few years away, bold and innovative companies are beginning to see the benefit of risk transfer to leading industry players. Imagine corporate law departments sharing defense fees with law firms and funders to precisely contain their spending on defense cases and complex litigation. Or law firms routinely able to take on fixed-fee defense work—capping defense spending for clients—with the help of funding. In exchange, law firms will reasonably ask for more cases and success fees to further align incentives with these clients. Law firms may also build defense funding into hybrid plaintiff-defense portfolios, to offer clients value in yet a third way.”