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Rory is the CEO of Eperoto, championing the use of decision analysis to improve clarity around litigation and arbitration risk. Originally from New Zealand, he's worked within legal technology for decades, delivering innovative solutions to the top global firms, government, as well as specialist legal boutiques.

Below is our LFJ Conversation with Rory Kingan:

Eperoto’s approach emphasizes using lawyer judgment rather than AI or data-driven models. Why is that distinction important, and how does it build trust among lawyers, funders, and other stakeholders?

At Eperoto, we believe that lawyer judgement is the foundation of credible litigation and arbitration analysis. High-stakes disputes aren’t like consumer tech problems where large-scale historical data exists and small inaccuracies are insignificant. They're unique, context-dependent situations where experience and nuanced legal reasoning are irreplaceable. In most commercial cases, AI simply doesn’t have the training data or contextual nuance to make defensible predictions. Right now it also struggles with the complexity of jurisdictional variation and the role of precedent. No funder or sophisticated client should rely on a generic model to value a multi-million-dollar dispute.

Litigation and arbitration are inherently grey-zones. Outcomes turn not only on points of law, but also on credibility assessments, witness performance, tribunal psychology, and how fact narratives are perceived. These are areas where AI is weak and where judges and experts routinely disagree. Research across behavioural psychology and negotiation theory shows that human reasoning is still essential in these environments. Lawyers will often use an AI tool as a sounding board to explore different ideas and arguments, but ultimately they rely on their own judgement and reasoning to assess how different elements of the case are likely to unfold.

Eperoto is therefore built around a simple principle: Lawyers make the judgement; the platform helps them to structure and quantify it.

This distinction builds trust for three reasons:

1. It reflects how top practitioners already work. Clients retain leading counsel for their experience, intuition, and ability to form a reasoned opinion, not for machine-generated answers.
2. It avoids “false precision.” AI-driven confidence levels often create a misleading impression of certainty. Eperoto keeps the human experts in control.
3. It aligns with stakeholders’ expectations. Funders, insurers, GCs, CFOs and boards want a lawyer’s professional assessment, but expressed in a structured, decision-analytic way. Eperoto strengthens, rather than replaces, that judgment.

The result is a decision-analysis workflow that is transparent, explainable, and fully grounded in legal expertise. Precisely what stakeholders need to trust the numbers behind a funding or settlement decision.

When litigation funders assess potential cases, they often rely on intuition and experience. How does Eperoto help them quantify risk and likely outcomes in a way that strengthens those investment decisions?

Every litigation funder knows that a case is a contingent asset, and valuing that asset depends on understanding the likelihood of outcomes at trial or arbitration. Yet the process used to reach those views is usually unstructured, highly subjective, and difficult to defend when presented to an investment committee or external partner.

Eperoto addresses this by helping lawyers to apply decision-tree analysis. This is a method used for decades in energy, pharma, finance, and indeed litigation. Instead of relying purely on intuition, lawyers:

1. Map the key uncertainties. What issues drive liability? Likely quantum outcomes? How might damages be reduced? Where do procedural or evidentiary risks sit?
2. Assign probabilities grounded in legal judgment. No AI predictions: purely the lawyers’ professional view expressed clearly rather than implied.
3. Estimate costs & cost-shifting, interest, and any enforcement risk.

From this the tool calculates a visual quantitative risk report, showing funders the likely outcomes, expected value, downside scenarios, tail risk, and more.

This sort of analysis:

• makes an investment case more rigorous,
• dramatically improves internal and external defensibility, and
• surfaces insights impossible to see from narrative memos alone.

Funders, insurers, and counsel repeatedly tell us that this level of clarity is transformative. It sharpens decisionmaking, strengthens underwriting discipline, and improves alignment across stakeholders. Over time, a consistent, structured approach creates a more disciplined portfolio and generates a feedback loop that measurably improves investment decisions.

Clearer communication of risk and value benefits all stakeholders. What are the biggest barriers to achieving that clarity in practice?

The biggest barrier is language ambiguity. A typical merits opinion reads something like:

“It's most likely the defendant will be found liable for X, with only an outside chance the court will accept the argument Y. Damages could be as high as Z.”

Terms such as “very likely,” “little chance,” or “low risk” are interpreted wildly differently by different people, even among seasoned professionals. Research consistently shows a huge disparity in how people interpret such terms. For example "unlikely" can be interpreted as meaning anywhere from below 10% to over 40% likely to occur. Your investment decisions shouldn’t be subject to this margin of error just from internal communications.

A second barrier is complexity overload. Lawyers often present lengthy written analyses where different legal issues are explained sequentially:

“X might happen, but if not then Y. In that case Z will determine…”

Decision-makers are left to combine all these uncertainties mentally, plus litigation costs, insurance, interest, enforcement risks, appeal probabilities, and timing assumptions. Even highly experienced professionals can't intuitively do this correctly.

Eperoto solves these issues in three ways:

a) It forces clarity through quantification. “80% likelihood the contract is valid” is unambiguous, whereas “very likely” may be understood as 65% by one person and 95% by another.

b) It combines the factors automatically. No one needs to mentally integrate legal issues, damages pathways, costs, or conditional dependencies.

c) It presents the analysis visually. Charts and diagrams let stakeholders see the shape of the dispute, rather than reading dense text.

Together these remove unnecessary complexity, leaving stakeholders to focus on the true strategic questions rather than being stuck in ambiguous details.

Many lawyers hesitate to provide quantitative estimates because they fear being “wrong.” How do you encourage practitioners to engage with uncertainty in a more structured, transparent way?

This is a common concern, but it fundamentally misunderstands what quantification achieves. Providing estimates numerically doesn't remove uncertainty, it communicates it transparently. The alternative isn't "not being wrong"; it's being vague, which is far worse for the client or investor.

Sophisticated clients, funders, and boards understand that litigation outcomes are uncertain. What they want is clarity, not perfection. Yes, you should still make clear that a percentage estimate is not a promise; it is a transparent reflection of professional judgement, less ambiguous than vague adjectives. But once everyone accepts that, it allows for greater clarity and indeed honesty.

We encourage lawyers to adopt a mindset similar to experts in other industries:

• Quantification is not about being right; it’s about making uncertainty explicit.
• A structured model allows you to compare multiple scenarios, e.g. optimistic vs pessimistic or comparing different counsel’s assessments.
• Visual decision-trees help practitioners and clients see how different issues interact without needing to commit to one “correct” narrative.

Lawyers often find that once they begin using numeric estimates and decision trees, discussions with clients become easier, expectations align more quickly, and advice becomes more defensible. Many even rely on the visual component alone when presenting paths, strategy, and what truly drives the dispute.

How can tools like Eperoto help bridge the gap between legal reasoning and financial analysis, bringing dispute resolution closer to the standards of decision-making seen in other business contexts?

Business-critical decisions in energy, pharmaceuticals, and corporate strategy have used quantitative decision analysis for decades. A pharmaceutical company wouldn't greenlight a $50M clinical trial based on phrases like "good chance of success" or "strong scientific rationale". They'd model probabilities, conditional outcomes, and expected value. Yet litigation decisions involving similar amounts often rely on purely that kind of qualitative language.

The gap isn't from a lack of judgment. It's that legal reasoning and financial decision-making speak different languages. Lawyers think in terms of arguments, precedents, and likelihoods. Funders think in terms of expected values, downside risk, and portfolio returns. Eperoto translates between these worlds.

Here's a concrete example: A law firm presents a case with "strong liability prospects" and "substantial damages potential." The investment committee sees an attractive headline but struggles to assess the risk. Using Eperoto, counsel maps the decision tree and reveals that while liability looks good at 70%, the real value driver is a secondary issue: whether a contractual damages cap applies. If the cap doesn't apply, a 40% likelihood, it would triple the recovery. The investment thesis becomes clear: this isn't a simple 70% bet on liability; it's a case where the upside scenario creates most of the expected value. That fundamentally changes how you price the funding, structure the terms, and think about settlement strategy.

This kind of insight can easily be buried in a narrative memo but obvious when properly structured.

Specifically, Eperoto enables:

1. A common analytical framework - When counsel says "we have a strong case but quantum is uncertain," Eperoto forces that assessment into a structure funders recognize: probability-weighted scenarios with costs, timing, and enforcement risk factored in. This isn't dumbing down legal analysis; it's making it actionable.

2. Proper treatment of uncertainty - In portfolio management, no one expects point estimates: they expect distributions, scenarios, and sensitivity analysis. Eperoto brings that same rigor to litigation assets, showing not just expected value but the shape of the risk distribution. What's the 10th percentile outcome? How sensitive is the return to different assumptions? This is standard practice in all other asset classes.

3. Defensible investment decisions - Just as a PE firm documents the assumptions behind an acquisition, funding decisions should have the same analytical discipline. Eperoto creates an audit trail showing why a deal was approved or a settlement accepted, based on structured analysis rather than gut feel. Critical for investment committee scrutiny and stakeholder confidence.

4. Portfolio-level insights over time - Applying decision analysis consistently across a portfolio creates compounding benefits. Funders develop better calibration of their judgment, identify patterns of cases that outperform or underperform expectations, and build institutional knowledge about what drives value. Over time, this disciplined approach strengthens underwriting quality and improves portfolio returns. Just like how data-driven decision-making in other industries creates feedback loops that enhance performance.

The result is that litigation funding can be managed with the same analytical rigor as any other alternative asset class. Lawyers retain their essential role as expert judgment-makers, but that judgment gets expressed in a framework that investment committees can understand, stress-test, and defend to stakeholders.

Lauren Harrison serves as a co-founder and managing partner of Signal Peak Partners. Named one of Lawdragon’s Global 100 Leaders in Litigation Finance, Ms. Harrison brings over 25 years of high stakes commercial litigation experience to her role as funder. Prior to co-founding Signal Peak, Ms Harrison served as a Vice President to Law Finance Group.

As a trial lawyer, Lauren was a partner at Vinson & Elkins and later at Jones Walker. She was recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer annually from 2009 to 2021, a Best Lawyer in America for Intellectual Property, Antitrust Law and Commercial Litigation, and a Top Woman Attorney. Chambers recognized Ms. Harrison for her Antitrust work. She was awarded a Pro Bono College of the State of Texas Award for her work on behalf of nonprofit art institutions.

Lauren is a frequent speaker at conferences and law schools, presenting recently at BU Law School, SMU Law School, the UH Law Center, the Institute for Energy Law, and LitFinCon.

Below is our LFJ Conversation with Lauren Harrison:

Litigation funding conferences are a great way to connect with our counterparts within the industry. They offer space to discuss innovation and to workshop best practices. We are fortunate that, for the most part, third party funders recognize that each of us fills a niche. Rather than competing in a zero sum game, we contribute to the evolution of a powerful litigation tool. That said, industry events can devolve into echo chambers. We wanted to create an event where our peers do not form a supermajority, and where we can listen with fresh ears to new ideas.  Our sector faces rising tides of interest in regulation, taxation and disclosure. The time is now to come together to address those issues, and in order to do that it is important to have the full range of stakeholders and policymakers present. 

Signal Peak was founded on values like honesty, alignment of interests, speed, and creativity, and you’ve framed litigation funding as helping plaintiffs ascend complex cases. How does the Symposium help reinforce your firm’s identity and commitment to transparency and partner-first funding?

Litigation finance events typically do not draw much interest from the market side - practicing litigators and their clients. A point of pride at Signal Peak is that we are trial lawyers for trial lawyers. We want to hear attorneys’ insights about how we can be of help and to enjoy a level of discourse that comes from having experience with the type of complex commercial disputes that we are sourcing and underwriting. We have a comfort level with the tools, timelines and techniques of the adversarial process that builds trust. In a guild profession that is guided by ethical and fiduciary bounds, shared experience is significant. We expect our event to highlight our foundational expertise, to promote collaboration, and to create new opportunities to better serve our market. 

We understand that every first chair lawyer is essentially the CEO of their case, and some of their core executive functions are accessing needed capital and deploying resources efficiently towards case conclusion. Because we have worn the shoes of the trial attorneys who participate in funding, we are focused on keeping their and their clients’ needs front and center.  While we will never look for case control or intercede in the attorney-client relationship, we do look for opportunities to partner with top lawyers in ways that help them manage case expenses and durational risk. We like to say that all boats rise on a rising tide. Signal Peak strives to align with lawyers’ and their clients’ interests so that everyone has sufficient back end interest to reach their goals.

Lee Godfrey and his partner the late Steve Susman developed the model that underlies Signal Peak’s business, and really our entire industry. We want to work with attorneys who are willing to invest in their cases just as we do, and Lee and Steve exemplified that with gusto. Lee was a personal friend and one of the great trial attorneys ever to set foot in a courtroom. Stories of his prowess are legion, and I do not want to steal anyone’s thunder by previewing them here. I will say that Lee’s voir dire was the stuff of legend, and his gentlemanly wittiness on cross examination will likely not be matched.

We are excited to showcase our team. Before Mani Walia and I decided to join forces, we knew that our values and interests were aligned, but we did not predict the extent to which Signal Peak would feel greater than the sum of its parts. We are eager for our colleagues Jackson Schaap and Carly Thompson-Peters to share the spotlight with us. We could not have accomplished so much in such a short time without their brilliant collaboration. I hope that our friends who join us in Houston on February 26 will get to see the alchemy that blends our team and will understand that when they work with Signal Peak, they will become part of a cohesive and nimble group.

Logan Alters is the Co-Founder and Head of Growth at ClaimAngel, the nation's first transparent legal-funding marketplace. He built the company from a concept into a nationwide platform trusted by 500+ law firms, 25+ funders, and 20,000+ fundings at $100M+ in volume, all at one standardized rate. Before ClaimAngel, Logan worked across MedTech, consumer products, and venture capital. He earned his degree from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business in three years while competing as a Division I point guard.

ClaimAngel positions itself as a transparency-first platform at a time when plaintiff funding is facing heightened scrutiny from regulators and bar associations. How do you see ethics, disclosure, and alignment with ABA and state rules reshaping the future of the industry, and what specific standards is ClaimAngel trying to institutionalize?

We started ClaimAngel because we saw a gap that nobody was closing. Plaintiffs have access to a new asset, their case, but the industry built to serve them wasn't working. There are more than a thousand funding companies in the U.S., each setting its own rates, contracts, and processes. That fragmentation created an environment where anything goes. Rates compounded in ways clients couldn't understand until settlement. Fees got buried in contracts. Law firms experienced the frustration firsthand or heard the stories and decided not to recommend funding at all. The whole system defaulted to relationships over results: who you knew mattered more than what you offered. Funders competed for access instead of competing on terms. That model doesn't scale, and it doesn't serve plaintiffs.

That's the problem we set out to solve. Not by becoming funder #1,001, but by building marketplace infrastructure. In 2023, we pitched Morgan & Morgan's executives on a different future. A marketplace, not a funding company. One rate, one process, one outcome for every client. They didn't think it could be done, but they believed in the mission. John Morgan recently called ClaimAngel the Charles Schwab of client funding. The comparison resonated with us because it captures exactly what we're building. Schwab didn't invent investing. He standardized it. He made access equal and fees transparent. Before Schwab, Wall Street rewarded insiders. After Schwab, everyone got the same deal. Plaintiff funding is at that same inflection point.

We've now processed more than $100 million in volume across more than 20,000 fundings. Every contract includes plain-English rate disclosures. Every case shows plaintiffs what they'll owe at settlement before they sign and at any time in their portal. That's the standard: no surprises, no fine print. That's not a pilot. That's proof the model works.

We're not a funder. We're the infrastructure that makes funding predictable, transparent, and aligned with what plaintiffs and law firms actually need. When every client gets the same terms, and every contract looks the same, there's nothing to hide from regulators or bar associations. Standardization is the compliance solution.

The industry has operated like the wild west for too long. Regulators are stepping in. Bar associations are paying attention. Law firms are already choosing partners based on compliance and transparency, not relationships. That's the shift. More than 500 firms have at least one client funded through ClaimAngel. The next chapter will be defined by who builds the standard, not who has the best relationships. That's what we're here to do.

You describe plaintiff funding as being at a pivotal moment where opaque, high-rate transactions are giving way to marketplace models. What pressures or structural changes are driving that shift, and why is standardization becoming a competitive advantage?

The old model is breaking down. Not because anyone decided it should, because the market moved.

Law firms are shifting their focus toward efficiency and growth, minimizing anything that creates friction. They want funding that helps them maximize case value, not funding that eats into their fees at settlement. A firm managing thousands of cases can't afford the chaos of tracking liens with unpredictable compounding rates that make settlements harder to close. They want one process that works every time.

This is especially true for smaller firms. A solo practitioner or ten-person shop just wants to practice law. They don't want funding to become another thing they have to manage. Standardization means funding works as a tool in the background, not an encroachment on how they run their practice.

People are more financially aware than they were ten years ago. They understand interest. They ask about caps. They compare terms. The days of burying fees in contracts and hoping no one notices are over. When clients ask questions, firms need answers they can stand behind.

On the other side of the table, insurance carriers are already ahead. They use data to model case values, they identify plaintiffs under financial pressure, and they extend timelines knowing desperate clients will settle for less. Their algorithms win. When a plaintiff can't afford to wait, the carrier knows it, and the offer reflects that weakness. As funding becomes more widespread and predictable, carriers will have to adjust. Plaintiffs who can afford to be patient change the calculus entirely. That's the power of standardized funding.

Capital markets are moving too. Litigation finance is maturing into a real asset class, and institutional money is looking for places to deploy. But capital doesn't flow into fragmentation. A thousand funders with a thousand different rate structures and contract terms isn't investable infrastructure. Standardization is what unlocks scale. It's what allows the industry to grow from a few billion dollars to tens of billions deployed annually.

These forces aren't pushing toward a slightly better version of the old model. They're pushing toward new infrastructure. The companies that figure this out early will define the next era of plaintiff funding.

Your Rule of One framework aims for one rate, one process, one outcome. Why pursue a true standard instead of a traditional pricing strategy, and how do you respond to funders who argue flexibility is necessary for risk management?

One rate. One process. One outcome. That's not a tagline. It's the entire model.

A client knows exactly what they will owe. A law firm knows what a lien looks like at any point. No surprises. No shifting rates. No complicated projections. Simplicity isn't a marketing angle. It's a consumer protection tool and an operational stability tool for firms of any size.

The old model worked differently. Every funder created its own rate structure, contract terms, and interpretation of risk. Most clients don't understand why a four percent monthly compounding rate leads to a 6x repayment in 24 months. That complexity benefits only the insiders who understand it.

Bob Simon at Simon Law Group put it simply: lawyers have an ethical duty to do what's best for their clients. If a client needs access to capital to care for themselves or loved ones, you should help them find the lowest interest rate. That's not optional. It's the job.

The consequences of getting it wrong are real. Firms inherit cases all the time where the previous attorney used funding with poor terms, and by the time the case settles, the client's net is so low the case can't even settle. It leads to law firm fee reductions or the client drops the firm or it goes to trial. That's not what plaintiff funding is supposed to do.

Funders often defend rate flexibility as risk management. But pricing in plaintiff funding didn't evolve from risk. It evolved from fragmentation. With no shared standard, companies layered compounding, step-ups, duration triggers, underwriting fees, broker fees that can reach twenty percent, and buyout fees. None of this reflects actual case risk. It reflects legacy complexity built in isolation.

That complexity helped keep plaintiff funding adoption stuck at four to six percent of the total potential market. Rates rose so high that funding became a last resort. Yet more than ninety-seven percent of personal injury cases settle or win. When an asset class has a loss profile comparable to credit card defaults, extreme pricing is hard to defend. Real risk management comes from disciplined underwriting, transparency, and fair pricing, not stacking fees to justify high rates.

Standardization isn't a constraint. It's the path to mass adoption. The Rule of One isn't a theory. It's 20,000+ fundings across 500+ firms. That's proof at scale.

You’ve set a standardized rate of 27.8 percent simple annually with a 2x cap. What was the economic thinking behind those parameters, and how does this model align incentives across plaintiffs, law firms, and funders?

We didn't start by asking what rate we could charge. We started by asking who we're actually competing with.

Ninety-five percent of plaintiffs don't use plaintiff funding. When someone is injured, out of work, and waiting on a claim, they reach for credit cards and personal loans. That's the market we're converting.

The problem is that consumer credit wasn't built for a plaintiff's reality. It prices the borrower, not the case. It assumes steady income and monthly payments. A plaintiff has access to a new asset, their case, but a credit card can't tap into that. The pressure spills onto law firms and ultimately the settlement.

So we worked backward from that reality. If we want to convert plaintiffs away from credit cards, we need to beat credit card economics for someone who can't work, can't make monthly payments, and doesn't know when their case will settle. That's how we arrived at 27.8 percent simple rate with a 2x cap.

Here's what that looks like in practice. A plaintiff who takes $5,000 and settles in 18 months owes around $7,400 with all fees. With a typical compounding product with a slew of origination and servicing fees, that same funding could easily exceed $15,000. That difference is the gap between a client who walks away whole and a client who resents their attorney.

For funders, the math works if they're willing to evolve. The old model delivered returns that would make a hedge fund blush, but in just a small percentage of cases. Our model delivers lower per-case returns but at scale, with fast capital deployment, consistent servicing, and a loss rate in the single digits, comparable to credit card defaults. The key is predictability. Our 27.8% annual rate (no compounding ever) works out to 6.95% every three months until settlement or the 2x cap. The 2x cap means a plaintiff who takes $5,000 will never owe more than $10,000, and that cap doesn't hit until 46 months. Most "2x caps" in the industry hit at one, two, or three years. Ours gives plaintiffs nearly four years.

That rate is only sustainable because our marketplace collapsed the cost structure. Traditional models relied on sales teams, manual deployment, and relationship-driven acquisition. That overhead required high rates. Our marketplace removes most of that friction. No sales cycle, no manual underwriting queues, standardized processes across every case. Efficiency and market competition make a lower rate viable. Insurance carriers already use data to identify weak and desperate plaintiffs. Our marketplace gives funders the same advantage. We standardized underwriting with quality case data (injury details, liability, policy limits, case docs, and more), so funders make calculated decisions in minutes instead of reputation-based approvals. Lower costs and disciplined underwriting mean we can sustain 27.8% at scale. It's a different business. It requires funders who see where the industry is going and law firms that recognize their clients deserve better. We've built the infrastructure to make that easy.

The legacy model asked: how much can we charge? We asked: how do we convert the ninety-five percent? One question builds an industry. The other protects a margin.

You’ve argued that plaintiff funding is best understood as a tool that converts time into negotiating power. How does ClaimAngel’s marketplace help plaintiffs stay in the fight longer and capture more of their claim’s true value?

How many situations in life can you actually buy time? That's what plaintiff funding is. Not debt. Not a loan. Time. And when you have a legal case, time is power.

When someone is injured and out of work, time is the one thing they don't have. Bills pile up. Pressure builds. Insurance carriers know this and wait. The longer a plaintiff can't afford to hold out, the lower the offer. That's not negotiation. That's leverage working against the people who need it most.

Funding flips that dynamic. A plaintiff who can pay rent and cover medical bills while their case develops is a plaintiff who can wait for the right offer. That's why they hired their attorney in the first place: to fight for the true value of their claim, not to take the first check that shows up.

When plaintiffs have time, law firms can do the work they were hired to do. Gather full medicals. Wait for maximum recovery. Push back on lowball offers. The cases that settle for $40,000 under pressure become six-figure results when the client isn't calling every day saying they need the money now. One client told us she was three days from losing her apartment when she got funded. Eighteen months later, her case settled for six figures. That's what time buys. Firms get more revenue with less pressure to settle early. Clients walk away with what they deserve from the start.

But here's the problem with traditional funding: time is power until settlement day, when it turns into kryptonite. A plaintiff who borrowed $5,000 at compounding rates suddenly owes $15,000+. The attorney's fee gets reduced. The client's net recovery shrinks. Everyone fought for two years to maximize the settlement, and the funding lien swallows the value. That's not time as power. That's time as extraction. Our model solves this. At 27.8% simple with a 2x cap, that same $5,000 costs $7,400, not $15,000. The client and attorney walk away with what they earned. Time stays power, even at settlement.

That's what ClaimAngel's marketplace delivers. In traditional funding, a plaintiff applies to one funder, waits for approval, and might get rejected. Then they start over. Our marketplace removes that friction. Multiple funders see the case simultaneously. Standardized terms mean no negotiation. A plaintiff who applies Monday can have funding by Wednesday. When you're three days from losing your apartment, that speed is the difference between staying in the fight and taking whatever offer is on the table.

The industry maximized what plaintiffs owe. We maximize what plaintiffs keep.

Ian Garrard is the managing director of Innsworth Advisors Limited, the advisor and manager to the funds that provide third party litigation funding for high value claims in the UK, EU and US.

Claims under management include high profile and groundbreaking claims in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal against Meta and Amazon, claims in the Netherlands against Oracle and Salesforce, as well as claims against VW in Germany and Apple in the US.  Before moving into litigation funding, Ian was a lawyer in private practice (on financing, restructuring and litigation matters) as well as a founder of specialist law firms and an advisor to major oil & gas interests on exploration and production assets.

The claim against Rightmove alleges that the portal charged estate-agents “excessive and unfair” listing fees, and that the action will proceed on an opt-out basis for thousands of agencies. What specifically attracted Innsworth to fund this case, and how does it fit with your overall litigation-funding strategy? 

Your readers will appreciate that we can’t say too much at this early stage, but on our evaluation it is a strong case on its merits, with a considerable amount of harm caused to the proposed class of businesses. Jeremy Newman, the proposed class representative and a former CMA panel member has an excellent team supporting him, led by lawyers from Scott+Scott UK LLP. Innsworth is a committed funder of opt out collective actions in the Competition Appeal Tribunal and this case fits squarely within our focus. More information on the claim is available at rightmovefeesclaim.com.

More generally, this is an exciting time for us. We are funding three other opt out claims in the CAT and we have just announced a claim on behalf of Uber drivers in the UK and Europe, which alleges that Uber has unlawfully used automated decision-making, including profiling, in its pricing systems to dynamically set driver pay by algorithm and reduce their take-home pay. If the claim doesn’t settle in the pre-action phase then the intention is to issue collective proceedings before the Amsterdam District Court in the Netherlands. We also have lots of promising cases in our pipeline at the moment, working in collaboration with a range of London and EU based law firms.

Opt-out class actions in the UK’s competition-law space have historically faced procedural and payout-challenges. How is the funding arrangement structured in this Rightmove claim to align incentives across Innsworth, the claimants, and their legal counsel? 

There has been much said and written about the challenges the UK’s opt out regime is working through - including the need to balance reasonable certainty as to the level of returns a funder will derive and the desire to ensure that the regime delivers for the benefit of the class. The benefit of any recovery by the class comes at a cost - as in any commercial context – and the CAT to its credit recognises the importance of third party funding to the functioning of the opt-out regime. Recognising this and the interests of the class, the funding is structured in a way that seeks to align those interests.

From a business model perspective, Rightmove commands a dominant share of UK property-portal traffic and listings (reportedly over 80%). How do you assess the strength of the antitrust and competition arguments in the claim, and how does Innsworth evaluate the potential for a precedent-setting outcome if the tribunal rules favourably? 

The Rightmove fees claim announcement follows a series of English unfair pricing judgments which have gone a long way to clarify how an English court or tribunal will approach these kinds of cases. Rightmove uses its high market share as a marketing tool and has achieved sky-high margins over many years, achieved through regularly increasing its prices.  Many agents feel they have no choice but to be on Rightmove and Rightmove knows that. Commentary from industry figures following the announcement of the claim has highlighted how strongly many class members feel about Rightmove’s pricing.

Litigation funding in large scale opt-out claims is increasingly visible to institutional investors. How does Innsworth view its role as a funder in terms of transparency, reputation-risk management, and alignment with claimant-interests?   

We take our role as a stakeholder in the UK (and global) litigation funding community very seriously and we are confident in the value that our funding provides. The service we provide, of non-recourse funding, protects claimants against the costs of litigation.

If our funding unlocks redress for a class, that is a recovery for those harmed that would not otherwise have been achieved, so there is therefore a synergy between the interests of a funder and a class harmed by breach of competition law.  Innsworth is transparent about its funding and terms of funding in the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

We do think there is a debate to be had about whether defendants should have access to financial information on e.g. a claim budget and funder commission. We think it’s fair that a defendant should be satisfied that a litigation funder can meet any adverse costs order made against it in an opt out claim (as England and Wales is a ‘loser pays’ jurisdiction). But currently defendants to these claims will scrutinise claim budgets and funding agreements in detail and use this to make opportunistic arguments, while claimants typically have no visibility on defendant budgets and funding. It’s an example of the information asymmetries which exist when seeking to hold dominant companies to account.

What is your take on the litigation funding market for opt out claims in England and Wales at the moment? 

We’ve seen a real slowdown in the number of claims being filed in the last year or so. A lot of this is due to uncertainty as to the level of return that the Competition Appeal Tribunal will permit a funder to receive, even if this has been freely agreed between a class representative and funder. Of course, the effect of PACCAR has made funding more challenging in England and Wales generally.

That said, Dr Kent’s recent success in her claim against Apple highlights the potential of the regime to hold dominant companies to account and to deliver meaningful redress to class members. The judgment is timely as the UK government is currently considering making reforms to the opt out regime in the face of a concerted lobbying effort from big business groups. We think the opt out regime is starting to deliver on its objective of improving competitiveness in the UK economy, so making any wholesale changes now would be counterproductive, but the prospect of reforms is adding to the uncertainty facing the regime.

Jim Batson serves as Managing Partner, General Counsel, and Chief Investment Officer of Siltstone Capital’s legal finance strategy, where he leads investment origination, diligence, and portfolio management for global dispute-related opportunities. With over a decade of experience in legal finance, Jim brings a unique blend of legal expertise and investment acumen to Siltstone’s expanding platform.

Before joining Siltstone, Jim served as the Chief Operating Officer at Westfleet Advisors, a litigation finance advisory company, and before that, as the Co-Chief Investment Officer – U.S. at Omni Bridgeway, a global litigation finance fund manager. At Omni, Jim was instrumental in expanding the firm’s U.S. presence, implementing the U.S. investment strategy, and developing one of the most respected teams in the industry.

Jim began his career as a trial lawyer. He later became a partner at Liddle & Robinson in New York, where he handled groundbreaking cases, including the seminal e-discovery case Zubulake v. UBS Warburg. His experience as both a litigator and investor enables him to evaluate risk and opportunity from multiple angles, making him a trusted partner to law firms, claimholders, and investors.

Robert Le is a Founder and Managing Partner of Siltstone Capital. Prior to founding Siltstone, Mr. Le was a Portfolio Manager at an investment platform of Millennium Partners, a hedge fund located in New York. Mr. Le managed a portfolio of public investments in the energy sector. Before Millennium, Mr. Le helped launch the E&P strategy at Zimmer Lucas Partners (“ZLP”), a Utility and Master Limited Partnership (“MLP”) focused hedge fund. During his tenure, the E&P portfolio became the top performing strategy.

Prior to ZLP, Mr. Le worked as an Analyst at Canyon Capital. Prior to Canyon, Mr. Le was an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley in the Global Energy Group. Mr. Le graduated from the University of Pennsylvania magna cum laude and as a Benjamin Franklin Scholar. Mr. Le also received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship for postgraduate studies in Sydney, Australia.

How does Siltstone integrate legal considerations into your investment strategies, particularly in the niche asset classes you focus on?

At Siltstone, legal analysis is at the heart of every decision we make. Before we commit capital—whether it’s in complex commercial disputes, or intellectual property—we start by looking at the case through a legal lens.

We’ve also developed proprietary software that allows us to quantify and track those risks in a disciplined way. By integrating legal considerations directly into our financial models, we’re able to bridge the gap between legal strength and economic value. Bringing on Jim Batson further strengthens our focus on diligence, given his breadth of experience.

Siltstone emphasizes 'organically sourced alternative investment opportunities.' Can you elaborate on the process of identifying and securing these unique opportunities?

When we talk about “organically sourced alternative investment opportunities,” we mean opportunities that come to us through the network we’ve built and cultivated.  Over the years, we’ve developed deep relationships across the litigation finance ecosystem, including law firms, businesses, claimants, insurers, experts, and brokers.  Those connections give us access to opportunities early, often before they hit the broader market.

We’ve also worked hard to create platforms that connect the industry more broadly, most notably LITFINCON—the premier litigation finance conference. LITFINCON has become a central gathering point for funders, law firms, insurers, investors, and thought leaders. In January 2026, we’ll host our fifth iteration in Houston, where we will once again be at the center of conversations shaping the industry and making connections.

By combining long-term relationships, our collective experience, and the connections we form at LITFINCON, we’re able to consistently identify and secure unique, high-quality opportunities that align with our investment strategy.

Siltstone aims to provide 'uncorrelated risk-adjusted returns.' What strategies do you employ to ensure the portfolio remains uncorrelated and resilient to market fluctuations?

At Siltstone, when we talk about delivering “uncorrelated risk-adjusted returns,” we mean building a portfolio that’s insulated from broader market swings. Case outcomes move on their own timelines and are driven by judicial processes, not by macroeconomic headlines.

Our proprietary risk-assessment tools enable us to model duration, damages, appeal exposure, and recovery probabilities, which provides discipline in portfolio construction and helps keep correlations low.

This mix of uncorrelated assets, disciplined structuring, and diversified exposure makes the portfolio resilient, regardless of broader market fluctuations.

Could you share insights into any recent developments or trends you're observing in the legal finance sector, and how Siltstone is adapting to these changes?

One of the biggest developments we’re seeing in legal finance is the continued professionalization and institutionalization of the space. What was once a niche, under-the-radar asset class is now drawing attention from major investors who are looking for uncorrelated returns. That shift brings both opportunity and competition.

We’re also watching growth in secondary markets—funders and investors are increasingly finding ways to trade exposure midstream, whether through portfolio sales, insurance solutions, or securitized products. That liquidity dynamic is changing how capital flows into the sector and how risk is managed.

Another important development is the ever-changing landscape of insurance. The use of insurance to protect downside risk has become far more sophisticated, with products ranging from adverse costs coverage to judgment preservation insurance. For funders like us, insurance provides an additional tool to de-risk investments and expand our ability to structure creative solutions for clients and investors alike.

We’re also seeing the rise of technology and data-driven tools. From case analytics to AI-driven damages modeling, the sector is moving toward greater use of predictive insights. At Siltstone, we’ve leaned into this by building proprietary software to better quantify and track litigation risk, which enhances both origination and portfolio management.

Finally, the regulatory conversation is becoming more active. We’re paying close attention to potential disclosure requirements and other legislative proposals. Our approach is to stay ahead of the curve by structuring deals with transparency in mind and building flexibility into our agreements so that regulatory changes don’t disrupt performance.

LITFINCON has quickly established itself as a premier event in the U.S. Now that it’s expanding globally, what factors drove that decision?

LITFINCON has quickly become the premier litigation finance event in the U.S., and expanding globally was the natural next step. As we continue to deploy capital and evaluate opportunities, we’re seeing that the market is increasingly international as claims, structures, and counterparties are emerging across multiple jurisdictions. To stay at the forefront, we need to be engaged globally.

We’re also seeing greater diversity in both the types of cases and the investment structures being developed around the world. Expanding LITFINCON beyond the U.S. allows us to explore those innovations directly, while also connecting with new partners and perspectives.

That’s why, in addition to hosting LITFINCON Houston on January 14–15, 2026, we’ll be taking the event global—with a conference in Singapore this July and another in Amsterdam this Fall. Ultimately, going global is about building on the momentum we’ve created by expanding relationships, opening new doors, and growing a broader, more connected LITFINCON community.

• Define clear service levels: agree internally which inquiries require immediate attention and which can wait.
• Use shared dashboards and call logs so tasks are visible and distributed fairly.
• Rotate responsibilities for after-hours or urgent coverage and protect genuine downtime.
• Partner with specialists like Moneypenny for overflow support during campaigns, press interest, or large case volumes.
• Celebrate client praise so people see the impact of their professionalism, reframing responsiveness as value, not just pressure.

1. Map the lifecycle for funded matters and legal cases, capturing every stage from inquiry to closure.
2. Set a consistent tone and language so outreach, intake, and case updates are aligned.
3. Adopt shared technology (CRM, case management, call notes) to prevent siloed touchpoints.
4. Monitor & refine: listen to sample calls, gather client feedback, and adjust scripts or processes to stay aligned with brand values.

• Intake & Triage: Instantly extracting and structuring key data like parties, claims, and timelines from initial documents.
• Diligence Support: Automating timeline creation, document clustering, and red-flag analysis in minutes, not days.
• Portfolio Monitoring: Delivering automated docket alerts and portfolio-wide signals without consuming analyst hours.

• Predicting Final Outcomes: No algorithm can accurately price in the nuance of judicial temperament, witness credibility, or complex negotiation dynamics. AI can surface the data, but the final risk assessment is a human judgment call.
• Automating Core Legal Strategy: The core elements of persuasion and legal argument require a human touch. AI serves as a powerful tool for the strategist, not a replacement of the strategist.

• Accelerated Decision Cycles: The 'time to a yes/no' is a critical metric. We've seen funds cut this down by weeks, allowing them to pursue more opportunities and deploy capital faster.
• Early Loss Prevention: The system automatically flags fatal flaws like expired statutes of limitation or critical missing documents during intake. This saves enormous costs in wasted diligence and external counsel fees on deals that were never viable.
• Increased Operational Leverage: Funds can significantly increase their deal vetting capacity without a proportional increase in headcount or overhead costs.