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Overview
Litigation is expensive, time consuming and disruptive to business operations, which is why it has traditionally been seen by corporations and their lawyers as a liability. Increasingly, however, savvy in-house counsel are realizing that it can also be an asset. Especially as the market tightens, more companies have begun to think creatively about litigation’s potential upside. To successfully pursue, or defend against, a claim, it is crucial to understand how to value the litigation in which you’re investing. At the most basic level, you need to know whether to accept or reject a settlement offer. But even before you get there, the client’s expected outcome should be aligned with the expected fees, costs, and time they invest. Similarly, a plaintiff litigator’s contingent or success fee should be worth their investment of time and any foregone hourly fees—even a purely hourly arrangement, on the plaintiff or defense side, should be aligned with the case’s expected value. And a litigation funder making direct payments to support the litigation needs to believe that the returns will support the investment.
Clients, lawyers, and funders, therefore, all have to value litigations. But how? The uncertainties of litigation have often left that conversation simple and surface level. This Briefing will explore how that process can occur in a more robust way, the opportunities that get opened up when litigation is valued properly, and how to structure a litigation to take advantage of and unlock that value.
This One-Hour Briefing will feature a conversation between Joshua L. Libling, Director of Risk Analytics for leading litigation funder Validity Finance, LLC; Ashton Batchelor, Chief Value & Analytics Officer at Robins Kaplan LLP; and Alex MacDonald, Chief Strategy Officer at McCarter & English, LLP, as they explore the following topics:
- Why value litigation? (20 minutes)
- What types of matters are more susceptible to being valued?
- How does the process of valuing litigation help clients?
- How does the process of valuing litigation help law firms and lawyers?
- How to value litigation? (20 minutes)
- What factors are considered when valuing a litigation?
- How do you think about what you don’t know when valuing a litigation?
- How do you incorporate your own values and risk tolerance into the value of a litigation?
- How to structure litigation? (20 Minutes)
- Which structures or fee arrangements fit with different value models and risk tolerances?
- How do you unlock the value in litigation that you might be missing?
- How do all the players in the litigation industry best work together to unlock the value of litigation?
Who Should Attend: In-house counsel, CFOs, litigators, litigation funders, finance and other allied professionals interested in better understanding litigation
Program Level: Overview
Prerequisites: None
Advanced Preparation: None