Join the Law & Economics Center (LEC) for lunch on Wednesday, March 26, from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm in downtown DC for an academic roundtable discussing transparency in our civil justice system, especially when it comes to third party litigation financing (TPLF)—a increasingly used and similarly scrutinized mechanism for financing lawsuits.
This event is open to the public.
Legislative efforts at the state and federal levels are just catching up to address some of the concerns raised by this no longer nascent and instead now prevalent aspect of civil litigation across the United States.
Several states have recently passed or are considering legislation requiring disclosure of TPLF in court cases and other reforms, and on February 5, 2025, Congressman Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet, Congressman Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05), and Congressman Mike Collins (GA-10) introduced HR 1109: The Litigation Transparency Act of 2025—the latest federal bill attempting to control some of the perceived abuses or distortions wrought upon the civil justice system by TPLF.
The luncheon will feature panelists discussing issues around TPLF that should inform some of these ongoing state legislative and congressional debates. The panel will include several experts who have researched or faced TPLF issues in the courts, including several academics who have just completed new peer-reviewed research on TPLF sponsored by LEC grants (more on these below). We hope you will join us for what promises to be an interesting discussion on one important driver in the evolution of litigation and its impact on the civil justice system. Doors open at 11:30 am for lunch, and the panel program runs from 12:00 – 1:30 pm. As with all LEC events, this program is offered as a public service with no fees, and complimentary lunch will be served.
We hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].
And, please forward this invitation and invite others who might benefit from attending!
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More on the issue. . . .
With TPLF, third party litigation financiers “invest” in lawsuits with an expected return on their investment by getting a cut of any judgment award or settlement received by their funded plaintiff. Sophisticated funders develop diverse portfolios of litigation so that they can assess and spread risk based on the probabilities of winning or achieving favorable settlements.
Some argue that this mechanism gives aggrieved parties access to court that they would otherwise lack because they would not have funds to bring litigation to recover for their losses against responsible defendants. Some worry that it leads to a flood of litigation that should never be brought in the first place and may skew normal incentives to settle because of funder control. A serious debate is occurring between commentators, in state legislatures and Congress, and in the courts over whether there should be requirements to disclose the existence and source of third party financing in particular cases. In most state and federal courts, disclosure is not yet required, clouding the ability to assess potential conflicts of interest and meaning courts are not operating on full information when deciding things like proportionality in discovery which is often based on a determination of the resources available to the parties. These issues and more will be discussed at the LEC luncheon panel.
Review the scholarly papers produced from the Henry G. Manne Program in Law & Economics Studies October 2024 Third Party Litigation Financing Research Roundtable
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Watch Previous LEC Panels on TPLF
Eighteenth Annual Judicial Symposium on Civil Justice Issues
Third Party Litigation Financing: What Effects on the Civil Justice System?
Monday, October 7, 2024
Third Party Litigation Financing: The Role of Disclosure and the Judicial Role
Tuesday, October 8 2024
Civil Justice Academy Webinars
The Economics of Law Firm Ownership: Should There be Limits on Who Can Own Law Firms?
Friday, October 20, 2023
Update on the Debate Over Third Party Litigation Finance
Friday, June 16, 2023