For governments, funding litigation makes economic sense, as it does for private litigation. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Justice Department lawyers collected about $8.1 billion, which is almost 3 times the budget for the Department of Justice. In Chicago, our newish US Attorney (Zachary Fardon) held a parallel news conference and pointed out that his office took in $ 78 million on a budget of under $34 million. He also pointed out that the federal hiring freeze and budget cuts have resulted in 19 "cold, empty chairs" in the Chicago US Attorney’s office.
So, why is that some people embrace blanket government employment freezes that make no sense economically or in terms of fighting crime and recovering fines and penalties? Maybe offices of the US Attorney’s should start using litigation funding?
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