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A guest column published this week makes a right-of-center case against pending federal restrictions on third-party litigation funding, arguing that the measures would strip conservative activists and small business owners of the capital they need to litigate against better-resourced opponents.

Writing in The State Journal, Drew Johnson takes aim at the Protecting Our Courts From Foreign Manipulation Act, led by Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, and at Senator Thom Tillis's proposal to impose a punitive tax on litigation funding proceeds. Johnson is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research and the 2026 Republican nominee for Nevada State Treasurer.

His central argument is that the bill's stated purpose, preventing foreign governments from bankrolling harassment suits, is already served by existing mechanisms including CFIUS review and judicial discretion, leaving the new disclosure requirements to do work their sponsors did not intend. Broad disclosure obligations, he contends, would deter funders from backing cases at all, and the resulting shortfall would fall hardest on plaintiffs without institutional balance sheets behind them.

Johnson illustrates the point with Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who lost an estimated 40% of his income during years of litigation before prevailing at the Supreme Court with backing from Alliance Defending Freedom. Absent outside support, he writes, Phillips "could have easily been forced to surrender."

The column is notable less for its policy analysis than for its author. Litigation funding restrictions have advanced largely on Republican votes, and the industry's defenders have generally come from the plaintiffs' bar. Johnson's framing, that citizens facing wealthy opponents should not be forced to fight alone, is an attempt to contest that ground.

An article published in the Arizona State University Corporate and Business Law Journal argues that five years of operating data under Arizona's Alternative Business Structure framework has not produced the ethical failures its opponents predicted, and that the debate is moving from theoretical objections to observable outcomes.

Writing in the ASU Corporate and Business Law Journal, Alex Chucri traces the framework to August 2020, when Arizona became the first state to eliminate ABA Model Rule 5.4 and permit non-lawyer ownership of law firms, with the ABS regime taking effect on January 1, 2021 under Arizona Supreme Court order R-20-0034. The central claim is structural: the state did not remove oversight so much as replace blanket prohibition with licensing, compliance obligations and regulatory accountability. Non-lawyers may hold equity, share profits and participate in management, but only under Supreme Court supervision, with approved compliance counsel, reporting procedures and audit requirements.

The article marshals the program's numbers. Licenses grew from two approvals in 2020 to 15 in 2021 and 25 in each of 2022 and 2023, reaching approximately 150 licensed entities by March 2026, with 114 ABSs actively operating during 2024. No ethics complaints were filed against ABS entities in the program's first three years; the first arrived in 2024, when the State Bar initiated disciplinary action involving two ABS-affiliated attorneys. A preliminary analysis of 2024 disciplinary actions, which the author acknowledges is limited by incomplete ABS staffing data, suggests ABS-affiliated lawyers faced discipline at a rate well below the broader Arizona attorney population.

Readers should weigh the source. Chucri is founder and CEO of Pravati Capital and in 2024 founded 1787 Legal Group, the Scottsdale ABS the article offers as its case in point. The argument nonetheless lands at a moment when several states, Illinois among them this week, are moving in the opposite direction, and Arizona remains the only jurisdiction with a five-year record to argue from.

Michael Israel, chairman and co-founder of IVO Capital Partners, has been named Fund Manager of the Month by RankiaPro, in a profile that traces his path from Paribas and Merrill Lynch to building one of Europe's more active litigation finance investors.

As reported by RankiaPro, Israel founded IVO Capital with Sidney Oury in 2012 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, which he describes as the defining moment of his career. He manages the funds in the IVO range and sits on the investment committee for the firm's litigation finance funds. The Paris-based manager oversees approximately €1.3 billion across listed credit and private credit, with litigation finance and venture debt forming the private side of the book.

The interview is largely a general reflection on investing rather than a litigation finance discussion, but Israel's framing carries over to how IVO approaches the asset class. He describes the cornerstone of the firm's method as an asymmetry lens, consistently assessing how much can be made against how much can be lost and under what scenarios, and highlights strategic importance as an underappreciated form of downside protection. He also argues the industry's principal edge lies less in analysis than in the willingness to act and then continuously reassess.

IVO has been visible in the sector over the past year. The firm launched IVO Legal Strategies Fund IV targeting €150 million, backed a €673 million Dutch consumer claim against Netflix over pricing practices, and joined both the European Litigation Funders Association and the International Legal Finance Association.

The recognition is a mainstream asset management outlet treating a litigation finance allocator as a credit manager, which is roughly the positioning European funders have been working toward.

An investment commentary published this week makes the case that Omni Bridgeway's shares do not reflect the quality of its legal assets platform, following a broad repricing across the litigation finance sector.

As reported by Livewire Markets, the piece characterises the ASX-listed company as a fund manager operating in a unique and high-returning asset class, argues that valuation support is clear at current levels, and points to a final close on fund raising expected during August as a near-term catalyst.

The argument rests on operating results the company disclosed at the end of July. Omni Bridgeway reported record FY26 new conditional and unconditional commitments of A$712.2 million across 43 new investments, roughly 38% above FY25, alongside record cash investment proceeds. The company has spent recent years shifting from a balance sheet funder to a manager of third-party capital, a transition given its clearest expression in the A$320 million secondary market transaction with Ares Management completed last year.

The sector reset referenced in the note has been visible across listed funders through 2026, with Burford absorbing a $2.4 billion write-down tied to the YPF reversal and Litigation Capital Management working through covenant waivers. Investors have applied that scepticism broadly, including to managers whose economics depend on fee income from committed funds rather than on outcomes in individual matters.

Whether that distinction gets recognised in pricing is the open question, and the completion of the current fundraising will supply a concrete test of institutional appetite at a moment when the asset class is being reassessed.

ProLegal has entered the 2026 Inc. 5000 at No. 11 in the legal category, posting 615% growth over the ranking period in its first appearance on the list.

According to EIN Presswire, the placement follows a run of recognitions for the consumer legal funding and law firm services company, which earlier this year ranked No. 18 on Inc.'s 2026 Regionals: Pacific list on the strength of more than 513% growth, and was named to Inc.'s Best Workplaces 2026 in the legal industry category.

The company has broadened well past its original funding business. Alongside ProLegal Funding, which provides plaintiffs with access to capital during active cases, it now operates ProLegal Rides, a national transportation service for injured clients; ProLegal Growth, a branding and digital agency for law firms; and ProLegal Live, offering operational support and client engagement services. The company launched a rebuilt platform this year positioning the combined offering as a law firm operations ecosystem rather than a funding product alone.

That diversification is the more interesting part of the ranking. Growth rates in consumer legal funding have historically tracked case volume and advance pricing, both of which draw regulatory attention. Revenue from transportation, marketing and back-office services sits outside the funding statutes that states have been enacting, which gives a company exposure to law firm spending without the compliance burden attached to the advances themselves.

ProLegal expanded into Kansas in July as that state's consumer legal funding law took effect, one of several markets where new statutory frameworks have opened the way for licensed operators.

Legal Bay has introduced a funding program allowing survivors covered by Los Angeles County's childhood sexual abuse settlement to access value from their scheduled installment payments rather than waiting for the full payout period to run.

According to PR Newswire, the county approved a $4 billion settlement resolving thousands of claims involving county-operated facilities dating back decades, with many allegations centered on the now-closed MacLaren Children's Center. Rather than distributing lump sums, the settlement pays compensation in installments across roughly five years.

Chief Executive Chris Janish said the programs "allow qualified survivors to access additional value from their future scheduled settlement payments, giving them greater financial flexibility today instead of waiting several more years." The funding is non-recourse, with repayment required only on case success, and approvals are typically completed within 24 to 48 hours.

The structure addresses a timing problem that has become more common as institutional abuse settlements grow large enough that defendants pay over multiple years. A claimant with an approved award but a five-year payment schedule holds a documented future receivable, which is a materially different underwriting proposition from a case whose outcome is unresolved. Post-settlement funding of that kind carries duration and collection risk rather than litigation risk.

Legal Bay has been active across related institutional abuse matters, including youth detention center litigation in several states and the New York Archdiocese claims. The MacLaren program extends that pattern to what is among the largest settlements of its type, in a segment where the principal question for survivors is less whether they will be paid than when.

Fox Rothschild has been dismissed from a New Jersey state court action brought by a couple who alleged the firm attempted to collect on high-interest loans they said they were unlawfully steered into taking from the firm's litigation funder client.

As reported by Law360, the claim arose from a car accident suit in which a former client alleged he was directed into multiple advances carrying rates so high that he ultimately owed more than his settlement was worth. The couple pursued the firm on an abuse of process theory tied to its role in the collection effort. Fox Rothschild argued its involvement had been limited to a tangential, representative capacity on behalf of its client, and the court accepted that the allegations did not support keeping the firm in the case.

The dismissal narrows a dispute that had drawn attention for testing whether counsel to a funder can be held directly answerable for the terms of the underlying advances. The suit was filed in July, and the firm had moved to exit shortly afterward.

The underlying allegations remain live against the funder itself, and the outcome speaks more to the limits of pleading against outside counsel than to the merits of the pricing complaint. New Jersey has been an active venue for consumer legal funding disputes, with several matters over the past year probing disclosure, rate structures and the relationship between funders and the firms representing claimants.

For the consumer segment, the case is another illustration of how rate and steering allegations are reaching courts even in the absence of a state statute governing the product. New Jersey's legislature has considered funding disclosure measures without enacting one, leaving those questions to be worked out claim by claim.

Aperture Investors has grown its litigation finance platform beyond $600 million in assets, with approximately $1 billion in total investment capacity, marking one of the larger disclosed commitments to law firm lending by an institutional manager this year.

According to Aperture Investors, the strategy provides structured loans primarily to law firms, secured by expected legal fee receivables from matters that are post-settlement, procedurally mature, near settlement or short duration in nature. The approach is designed to generate uncorrelated, income-oriented returns through institutional private credit in what the firm describes as an emerging and historically underbanked asset class.

Luke Darkow, Portfolio Manager for Litigation Finance, leads the platform. He brings more than 13 years of litigation finance investing experience and heads a team with relationships across more than 250 law firms and legal service providers. "Plaintiffs law firms' ability to access traditional debt and equity financing solutions remains relatively constrained, while investors are looking for sources of return that are less dependent on traditional market cycles," Darkow said.

The expansion follows Darkow's arrival from Victory Park Capital in September 2024 to launch the strategy. Aperture, part of Generali Investments, managed approximately $6.72 billion in assets as of June 30, 2026, across alternative credit strategies including asset-based finance and structured credit.

The structure is worth noting for how it differs from case-level funding. Lending against fee receivables from settled or near-settled matters carries duration and counterparty risk rather than the binary outcome risk of a single-case investment, which is precisely the profile institutional credit allocators have found easier to underwrite. As traditional funders contend with slower realisations and tighter capital, the law firm lending segment continues to attract managers whose comfort lies in credit rather than litigation outcomes.

A commentary published this week argues that California's litigation environment functions as an unofficial tax on businesses and consumers, adding to the state's cost of living at a moment when affordability dominates its politics.

As reported by California Globe, the piece by John Allard, a former mayor of Roseville with more than two decades as a small business owner, sets national tort costs at $529 billion in 2022, equivalent to 2.1% of GDP, and cites projections that the figure could exceed $900 billion by 2030. Within California, the author points to 199 nuclear verdicts between 2013 and 2022 totalling more than $9 billion.

Much of the argument focuses on state-specific mechanisms. Allard highlights the Private Attorneys General Act, noting that claims routed through the state review process resolve 52% faster while workers receive 67% less compensation than in court-filed claims, and describes Proposition 65 as having produced an industry of citizen enforcers, with settlements rising from $26 million across 890 settlements in 2022 to more than $101 million across over 1,300 settlements more recently. The commentary also flags the Gilead "duty to innovate" case as an example of novel liability theories reaching the state's highest court.

Third-party litigation funding appears only in passing, referenced in connection with Georgia's 2025 reforms rather than through California-specific data. That absence is itself notable: the state has no funding disclosure or registration statute, and the op-ed offers no estimate of funded case volume within its cost figures.

The piece is advocacy rather than analysis, and its figures come from tort reform sources whose methodology has been contested. It nonetheless illustrates how the cost-of-living frame is being applied to litigation policy in the largest state yet to legislate on funding, and where a disclosure debate has so far failed to gain traction.