Third Party Funding
Law, Economics and Policy

17th Oct 2024 by UName-456522

THIRD PARTY FUNDING FOR PROBLEM LEGAL FEES? HERE’S A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS An appreciation by Elizabeth Robson Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers and Phillip Taylor MBE, Head of Chambers, Reviews Editor, “The Barrister”, and Mediator Of ongoing concern to lawyers as well as the general-public, is the ever-present problem of access to justice paying for it, that is. Going to law is always expensive. Therefore, how do you — or actually your clients — finance it? If legal fees, court fees and so forth are beyond reach, especially now that legal aid provisions have been radically reduced, could the answer — or at least one answer — be TPF? ‘TPF’ refers to third party funding — hence the title of this timely, if potentially controversial title from the Cambridge University Press. According to the author Gian Marco Solas, third party funding is generally defined as ‘…the professional practice of funding the costs of a dispute in exchange for a share of the sum recovered (but) only in the case of victory, sometimes entailing the transfer of the claims, this not being made by lawyers of insurers.’ The assumption here is that the ‘third parties’ who have provided the funds get a (presumably) pre-agreed sum if the case is won, but not a penny if it isn’t. The point is made that, as very few authors have outlined ‘a systematic view of this practice’, this book now provides one, namely a ‘static vision of the problem’. In summary, the author explains that this book is ‘the first attempt to do a comprehensive analysis of TPF as a business phenomenon.’ We are assured that litigation funding of this nature can be applied in both civil and common law jurisdictions. The book’s introductory section describes a series of funding practices ’that would be potentially capable, one way or another, of providing an alternative opportunity to access justice and solve disputes, rather than using the parties’ own funds.’ Said ‘series’ includes most, or all forms of ‘alternative litigation funding’ (ALF), from legal expenses insurance, to contingency fees, to conditional fee agreements. The latter two of these have come under fire from time to time, among quite a few lawyers in quite a few common law jurisdictions. It is interesting that the book has set out to explain or explore, the possible circumstances in which third party funding could be regarded as ‘more efficient’ than other ALF methods. Read, note and contemplate all this if you will. Essentially this book presents a copiously researched study aimed at enabling readers to make at least a better-informed judgment of the advantages, or otherwise, of third party funding. It will almost assuredly pique the interest of academics and practitioners alike and anyone else seeking an enhanced understanding of the ins and outs, not to mention the rights and wrongs, of TPF. The date of publication of this hardback edition is cited as at 7th November 2019.

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