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September 04, 2024
Cadwalader partner and Antitrust Litigation co-chair Phil Iovieno spoke with Bloomberg Law about the continued growth of large U.S. law firms using investments from third parties to finance the cost of lawsuits in an article, “Big Law Grows Litigation Finance to Cut Risk, Please Clients,” published today.
As the article reports, large U.S. law firms have helped build litigation finance into a $15.2 billion industry, up from $9.5 billion five years ago, according to Westfleet Advisors. The large firms’ comfort has stemmed from a better understanding of the industry and a desire to take on more contingency cases without assuming all the risks. Antitrust, patent litigation and international arbitration were cited as popular areas of litigation finance.
Phil, who wrote a New York Law Journal article about the industry’s increase in contingency fee work, noted that Cadwalader uses the funding for all contingency cases, typically handling cases with $10 to $20 million budgets. The firm has several contingency cases with funding, and Phil said he only works with a select group of well-established funders who are comfortable with large budgets, despite getting solicitations for funding nearly every week.
“We’re not turning a contingency case into a billable case, we are sharing the risk with the funder,” Phil said. “You pick your funders carefully—you just have better outcomes.”
Read it here (subscription required)
