What Funders and Lawyers Should Do (or Stop Doing!) to Be Better Dealmakers During Funding Discussions

Litigation finance has become an essential tool for modern litigation strategy — but with its growth has come a wave of discovery requests seeking information about funding arrangements. These requests are improper, burdensome, and legally unsupported. To help lawyers and litigants push back with confidence, Certum has released a new Model Brief Opposing Discovery of Litigation Funding—a comprehensive, practitioner-oriented document designed to equip litigators with the strongest arguments, cases, and frameworks available. This publication is now available for free download . The Model Brief is part of Certum’s growing library of thought leadership and practical guidance on litigation finance and insurance. That library includes Certum’s Guide to Litigation Funding and its annual survey of in-house counsel . Across federal and state courts, parties continue to seek discovery into litigation funding sources and materials, often as a tactic rather than a legitimate inquiry into claims or defenses. These efforts raise serious issues: Privilege and work-product concerns Chilling effects on access to justice Attempts to shift focus away from the merits Increased litigation costs and delays Yet for many lawyers, responding to these requests requires reinventing the wheel. Certum’s model brief solves that problem. It provides a structured, persuasive, and research-backed response that can be adapted swiftly to any case. Click here to download the brief.

Bloomberg recently interviewed Certum Group’s William Marra as part of its coverage of efforts by commercial liability insurers to require the disclosure of third-party litigation funding agreements. Marra explained to Bloomberg that “[t]he disclosure of litigation funding risks putting impecunious litigants at a systematic disadvantage in our legal system,” adding mandatory disclosure “can disclose to defendants very valuable information, including who has funding, and critically, who does not have funding.” Marra further responded to the argument that litigation funders might fuel frivolous litigation. “To the contrary, the evidence shows that funders serve as a very effective screen, only backing the most meritorious cases, and if anything, likely resulting in fewer weak cases getting filed,” Marra said. This statements builds on arguments Marra previously advantaged in a Vanderbilt Law Review article about litigation funding.  The Bloomberg article is available here .