Litigation finance pits greed against greed

There was a late-stage captialism that swallowed a fly…

Early in the 19th century, political philosophers like Jeremy Bentham began to rail against champerty, whereby “unscrupulous nobles and royal officials would lend their names to bolster the credibility of doubtful and fraudulent claims in return for a share of the property recovered.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty_and_maintenance#History

On its face, the practice of inviting investors to back litigation against deep-pocketed, corrupt parties sounds pretty good. Large corporations and wealthy individuals have enormous litigation warchests that allow them to abuse people with impunity, using their cash to draw out lawsuits until their victims run out of money for lawyers.

Opening litigation against these bullies to investors tips the balance. Think of class-action suits and no-win/no-fee cases: a law-firm locates someone with a good grievance against a deep-pocketed foe and foots the bill for the case. The longer the bully drags out the litigation, the more billable hours the plaintiff’s lawyer racks up, which they can seek to recover as part of an eventual judgment in their favor.

Champerty — called “litigation finance” these days — allows third parties to step in and…