Burford Capital, the leading global finance firm focused on law and the world’s largest provider of litigation finance, has been recognized for innovation at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards for North America.
The award recognizes Burford, along with Buchwald Capital Advisors and Stevens & Lee, for the unprecedented use of legal finance to solve a common problem faced by bankruptcy estates. In September 2016, Burford bought an interest in the right to receive litigation recoveries from a $213 million judgment on appeal, in a public auction by MagCorp bankruptcy trustee Lee Buchwald and his attorney Nicholas Kajon of Stevens & Lee. The $26.2 million sale to Burford enabled the estate to liquidate a portion of a contingent asset, hedge against appellate risk and guarantee a minimum recovery to creditors.
In addition to the award for MagCorp, FT also named Burford CEO Christopher Bogart as one of the Top 10 Innovators of the Year. Bogart, who co-founded Burford, has led its impressive growth from a startup business in 2009 to the world’s largest provider of legal finance. In the process, he has helped jumpstart the legal finance industry and—by providing new and creative solutions to some of the most persistent challenges for law firms and clients—revolutionized the business of law.
“It is gratifying to have achieved this recognition for two qualities—innovation and collaboration—that are so core to Burford’s culture and, even more important, so valuable to our clients,” commented Christopher Bogart. “This recognition affirms Burford’s innovative approach to the business of law as well as its capacity to collaborate with our clients to solve business problems.”
Results of the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards were announced in New York on December 11th.