A justice system can't really be impartial when there are business entities betting on it.



When we think of our system of justice, we might envision the heroic small town lawyer, Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird. Or the jury deliberations in 12 Angry Men. Or the countless other movies, TV series, and high school civics textbooks that depict the U.S. justice system as a uniquely virtuous pillar of American society.

Unfortunately, that glorified image of the U.S. justice system is at odds with today's reality. In far too many instances, today's civil justice system is utilized not as a means for delivering justice but as a potential profit center -- in other words, less Atticus Finch and more Gordon Gekko, the rapacious investor in Oliver Stone's Wall Street.

We see this play out in some class action lawsuits, where the class members receive token awards while their lawyers walk away with millions. It is also visible in the millions of dollars spent every year by the plaintiffs' bar on advertising, a practice once prohibited for lawyers.

And this troubling trend could be accelerated by a new development: the spread of third-party litigation financing, or TPLF.

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You probably haven't heard of TPLF. It's a fairly recent creation, originating in Australia and now landing on the shores of the U.S. In essence, TPLF is the practice of hedge funds and other investment firms providing funds to plaintiffs' lawyers in order to conduct litigation. If the case is won in court or settled, the investor is repaid out of the proceeds of the lawsuit, usually with an extremely high rate of return. The investors, therefore, have a direct stake in the outcome of the case.

Proponents of TPLF say that providing this new funding stream increases access to the courts. But U.S. courts are already widely accessible. For instance, a plaintiff can hire an attorney on a contingency fee basis, a practice that is prohibited in most other developed countries.

While TPLF is not necessary to increase access to U.S. courts, it does create a whole new set of problems and conflicts of interest for litigants, their attorneys, and society at large.

Let's start with the litigants. TPLF supporters allege that the practice is risk-free for plaintiffs, since, if they lose, they typically don't have to repay the investor. But more than 95 percent of U.S. civil cases end in settlements rather than going to trial. And a closer look at one recent case demonstrates major dangers for plaintiffs if they accept a settlement that's less than that demanded by the investor.

In this case, a Texas-based security company, DeepNines, obtained an $8 million loan from a TPLF firm to fund patent litigation against a competitor. In the end, DeepNines received a $25 million settlement. However, because of the terms of the TPLF contract, the investor received $10.1 million of the settlement, while DeepNines, after paying attorneys' fees, netted less than $800,000 -- only about 3 percent of the total settlement amount.

To add insult to injury, the investor then turned around and sued DeepNines for settling for an amount below what the investor's financial models suggested they could receive. The case was eventually resolved through a confidential settlement.

Like Gordon Gekko's insider trading machinations, the DeepNines example shows that many TPLF contracts are rigged in favor of investors. For instance, the contracts often provide for "waterfall" payouts -- meaning that the TPLF investors take a higher percentage of the first dollars of settlement, while the plaintiff's share only rises as the total settlement figure reaches an amount pre-set by the investors. Thus, plaintiffs are pressured to hold out for settlements or judgments far above what they would have accepted otherwise in order to satisfy their investors. And defendants suffer as well, since they are forced to contend with longer and costlier litigation. This scenario stands the justice system on its head by putting the investor in the driver's seat while hurting the primary parties in the case.

In the DeepNines case, the plaintiff still had substantial control of the lawsuit. But when it comes to class actions and other multi-plaintiff lawsuits, it is the investment firms, not the plaintiffs, that often appear to be in control.

For example, a leading TPLF firm invested $4 million in a high-profile, controversial lawsuit brought by Ecuadoran plaintiffs against the Chevron Corporation. The firm's contract stipulated that it would have veto power over the choice of attorneys and also receive precedence over the plaintiffs in the disbursement of any settlement or judgment funds. In all, the firm stood to earn tens of millions of dollars in the event of a successful settlement or judgment.

As for the Ecuadoran plaintiffs, their contract specified that they would receive the balance of any settlement or judgment only after eight different tiers of funders, attorneys, and "advisers" were paid first. It is unclear whether they knew what they were signing up for; according to Fortune magazine, several plaintiffs acknowledged their approval of the 75-page TPLF contract with merely a fingerprint.

Late last year, the funder announced it was ending its involvement in the Chevron case. This occurred months after a U.S. District Court judge in New York issued an opinion finding ample evidence of fraud by the plaintiffs' attorneys in the case.

All this suggests that the Chevron Ecuador case is being primarily driven by funders and plaintiffs' attorneys, not the actual plaintiffs. As with the DeepNines case, this situation makes a mockery of our system of justice by placing the profiteering of outside investors ahead of the interests of the parties in court.

TPLF also creates significant problems for lawyers. Lawyer Ethics 101 states that lawyers have a fiduciary duty to their clients. But this fundamental relationship is jeopardized when a third-party funder enters the picture. For one thing, when TPLF investors get involved in a case, they often front the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees. So when an attorney is managing a case, will they act in the best interests of their client, as they are supposed to do, or in the interests of the third-party funder paying their salary?

In addition, at least one court has determined that attorney-client privilege doesn't apply to communications between third-party investors and attorneys. So if an investor asks an attorney for sensitive information about a case it is funding, that information could be subpoenaed by the opposing party and used against the plaintiff.

So we've seen how TPLF benefits funders and hurt litigants. But the biggest loser from TPLF might be society at large. This is because we all rely on an impartial civil justice system to resolve disputes in a fair and expeditious manner. When TPLF debases that system by putting investor profits ahead of justice, society is the loser.

It's time for policymakers to step up to the plate and curtail this practice, particularly in the context of class action litigation. While by no means a cure-all for the problems facing the U.S. justice system, it can help nudge the system away from the values of Gordon Gekko and back toward those of Atticus Finch. Because when it comes to the delivery of justice, greed is not good.