Trending Now

A Framework for Measuring Tech ROI in Litigation Finance

A Framework for Measuring Tech ROI in Litigation Finance

This article was contributed by Ankita Mehta, Founder, Lexity.ai – a platform that helps litigation funds automate deal execution and prove ROI.

How do litigation funders truly quantify the return on investment from adopting new technologies? It’s the defining question for any CEO, CTO or internal champion. The potential is compelling: for context, according to litigation funders using Lexity’s AI-powered workflows, ROI figures of up to 285% have been reported.

The challenge is that the cost of doing nothing is invisible. Manual processes, analyst burnout, and missed deals rarely appear on a balance sheet — but they quietly erode yield every quarter.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. This article introduces a pragmatic framework for quantifying the true value of adopting technology solutions, replacing ‘low-value’ manual tasks and processes with AI and freeing up human capital to focus on ‘high-value’ activities that drive bottom line results  .

A Pragmatic Framework for Measuring AI ROI

A proper ROI calculation goes beyond simple time savings. It captures two distinct categories:

  1. Direct Cost Savings – what you save
  2. Increased Value Generation – what you gain

The ‘Cost’ Side (What You Save)

This is the most straightforward calculation, focused on eliminating “grunt work” and mitigating errors.

Metric 1: Direct Time Savings — Eliminating Manual Bottlenecks 

Start by auditing a single, high-cost bottleneck. For many funds, this is the Preliminary Case Assessment, a process that often takes two to three days of an expert analyst’s time.

The calculation here is straightforward. By multiplying the hours saved per case by the analyst’s blended cost and the number of cases reviewed, a fund can reveal a significant hard-dollar saving each month.

Consider a fund reviewing 20 cases per month. If a 2-day manual assessment can be cut to 4 hours using an AI-powered workflow, the fund reallocates hundreds of analyst-hours every month. That time is now moved from low-value data entry to high-value judgment and risk analysis.

Metric 2: Cost of Inconsistent Risk — Reducing Subjectivity 

This metric is more complex but just as critical. How much time is spent fixing inconsistent or error-prone reviews? More importantly, what is the financial impact of a bad deal slipping through screening, or a good deal being rejected because of a rushed, subjective review?

Lexity’s workflows standardise evaluation criteria and accelerate document/data extraction, converting subjective evaluations into consistent, auditable outputs. This reduces rework costs and helps mitigate hidden costs of human error in portfolio selection.

The ‘Benefit’ Side (What You Gain)

This is where the true strategic upside lies. It’s not just about saving time—it’s about reinvesting that time into higher-value activities that grow the fund.

Metric 3: Increased Deal Capacity — Scaling Without Headcount Growth

What if your team could analyze more deals with the same staff? Time saved from automation becomes time reallocated to new higher value opportunities, dramatically increasing the value of human contributions.

One of the funds working with Lexity have reported a 2x to 3x increase in deal review capacity without a corresponding increase in overhead. 

Metric 4: Cost of Capital Drag — Reducing Duration Risk 

Every month a case extends beyond its expected closing, that capital is locked up. It is “dead” capital that could have been redeployed into new, IRR-generating opportunities.

By reducing evaluation bottlenecks and creating more accurate baseline timelines from inception, a disciplined workflow accelerates the entire pipeline. 

This figure can be quantified by considering the amount of capital locked up, the fund’s cost of capital, and the length of the delay. This conceptual model turns a vague risk (“duration risk”) into a hard number that a fund can actively manage and reduce.

An ROI Model Is Useless Without Adoption

Even the most elegant ROI model is meaningless if the team won’t use the solution. This is how expensive technology becomes “shelf-ware.”

Successful adoption is not about the technology; it’s about the process. It starts by:

  1. Establish Clear Goals and Identify Key Stakeholders: Set measurable goals and a baseline. Identify stakeholders, especially the teams performing the manual tasks- they will be the first to validate efficiency gains.
  2. Targeting “Grunt Work,” Not “Judgment”: Ask “What repetitive task steals time from real analysis?” The goal is to augment your experts, not replace them.
  3. Starting with One Problem: Don’t try to “implement AI.” Solve one high-value bottleneck, like Preliminary Case Assessment. Prove the value, then expand. 
  4. Focusing on Process Fit: The right technology enhances your workflow; it doesn’t complicate it.

Conclusion: From Calculation to Confidence

A high ROI isn’t a vague projection; it’s what happens when a disciplined process meets intelligent automation.

By starting to measure what truly matters—reallocated hours, deal capacity, and capital drag—fund managers can turn ROI from a spreadsheet abstraction into a tangible, strategic advantage.

By Ankita Mehta Founder, Lexity.ai — a platform that helps litigation funds automate deal execution and prove ROI.

Commercial

View All

Deminor’s Wouter de Jong Sees Untapped Dutch Demand for Commercial and Patent Dispute Funding

Deminor's newest Dutch hire has said many sound business-to-business disputes in the Netherlands go unpursued because of cost, risk or resource constraints, pointing to an opening for litigation funders.

As reported by Litigation Finance Insider, Wouter de Jong discussed his move into funding in an interview published on 4 October. De Jong joined Deminor as Senior Legal Counsel in its Utrecht office after more than 14 years in disputes, including eight as a patent litigator in private practice and six as Head of Litigation at a major international company, as Deminor announced in September.

He said litigation funding is less unfamiliar to Dutch companies than it was 15 years ago but remains poorly understood. Two misconceptions recur with clients: the non-recourse "no cure, no pay" structure, and the extent to which Deminor offers litigation expertise beyond capital. He credited the Netherlands' legal system, efficient proceedings and strong judiciary for producing meaningful outcomes within reasonable timeframes.

De Jong also highlighted intellectual property. The Unified Patent Court, he said, lets patentees resolve disputes across larger territories in a single forum, and he has seen rising local inquiries about patent funding. Patent cases demand deeper underwriting of the technology and the scope of protection, making them slower to assess than typical commercial disputes.

The interview signals where Deminor expects growth from its Dutch presence, which opened in June as its tenth office worldwide: single-claim commercial and IP disputes, rather than the collective actions for which the Dutch market is better known.

Loopa Finance’s Gouveia Urges Litigation Funding Rules That Protect Transparency Without Capping Returns

A senior investment manager at Loopa Finance has argued that litigation finance regulation should safeguard transparency and independence without restricting pricing, access to capital or the industry's ability to innovate.

As reported by Litigation Finance Insider, Marina Gouveia, Senior Investment Manager at Loopa Finance, said in a commentary published on 4 October that standards-based oversight is preferable to prescriptive statutory rules. She identified transparency, independence, contractual clarity and the integrity of proceedings as the priorities.

Gouveia noted that the market spans single-case funding, portfolio financing, award monetisation and law firm or corporate structures, and that sophisticated corporate clients and individual consumers have very different needs. A uniform regime, she suggested, would fit neither well. She also warned that return caps could make some claims less commercially attractive to finance, particularly those needing large upfront costs or long proceedings, which could narrow access to justice.

She accepted that some regulatory goals are legitimate, including managing conflicts of interest, ensuring parties understand their agreements, verifying that funders have the resources to perform, and protecting claimants' control over strategy and settlement. Her preferred route is standards that evolve through courts, arbitral institutions, counsel and funders as new risks emerge, rather than legislation attempting to anticipate future products.

The piece names no specific jurisdictions or bills. It arrives as regulators in the UK, EU and several US states continue to debate disclosure and oversight rules, and it reflects the self-regulation approach funders such as Loopa have promoted through bodies including the European Litigation Funders Association.

PGMBM Opposes Bid to Hold 400,000-Claimant Mariana Hearing in Private

Pogust Goodhead, trading as PGMBM, has said it is opposing an application to hold today's High Court hearing on who represents more than 400,000 claimants in the Mariana Dam litigation under seal.

According to a statement issued by PGMBM, lawyers acting for the Mariana Client Committee served an application on Monday asking the court to hold the hearing in private. A PGMBM spokesperson said the firm believes the move "flies in the face of access to justice" for the claimants affected by the disaster, and described transparency for clients as fundamental. PGMBM said it is urgently asking the judge to reject the application in the public interest.

The hearing is an expedited two-day session on 5 and 6 October to decide which firm should act for the claimants. As Legal Futures reported, the High Court earlier refused a request to stay the proceedings and directed that the representation dispute be determined at that hearing, rejecting calls for it to be held in private. The dispute pits PGMBM against Bailey Glasser International, which the Client Committee has sought to instruct in its place.

The statement did not say how the court has responded to the new application, and the application itself was supplied to media only as an attachment. PGMBM's account is one side of a contested matter, and the Client Committee's lawyers have not been quoted.

The fight over the case, a claim against BHP over the 2015 Fundão dam collapse, has drawn attention across the litigation funding market because control of a mass claim of this size determines how funders, lawyers and claimants are aligned ahead of the quantum trial listed for April 2027.