A recent article in The Lawyer points out emerging trends in legal finance, including corporates’ increased independence in seeking legal finance. Burford MD Craig Arnott addressed this growth and noted differences between legal finance business models: “…there are a number of business models and being listed is just ours… We intend to be around for the longer term. We’re proud to be a public company.” Arnott also specifically notes why in-house counsel are increasingly seeking legal finance:
“Our clients are either law firms seeking a way to pitch to clients or corporates not getting the same pricing structures and coming to us with books of business. Litigation is not [a corporate’s] normal business so either it can’t capitalize on any business or it doesn’t know how to. Legal cost departments are seen as sinkholes because they detract from earnings. This is particularly true for listed companies.”