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Community Spotlight: Dean Gresham, Managing Director, Certum Group

Community Spotlight: Dean Gresham, Managing Director, Certum Group

Dean Gresham is a Managing Director who oversees the evaluation, underwriting, and risk management of all the company’s risk transfer solutions, including litigation finance and contingent risk insurance. With 25 years of experience in complex litigation and legal risk analysis, Dean ensures rigorous underwriting standards and strategic risk mitigation across the company’s risk transfer solutions.

Before joining Certum Group, Dean was a trial lawyer for more than 21 years handling complex commercial, catastrophic injury, qui tam, and class action litigation across the country. While practicing, Dean litigated on both sides of the docket and developed a keen ability to analyze and assess risk from both the plaintiff’s and defendant’s unique perspectives.

In 2020, Dean was awarded the Elite Trial Lawyer of the Year award by the National Law Journal for his trailblazing work on a complicated wrongful adoption case. Dean is consistently chosen by his peers as a Texas Super Lawyer (2009-2024); one of the Best Lawyers in Dallas by D Magazine (2009-2024), one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers in Texas by the National Association of Trial Lawyers (2011-2024), and in the Nation’s Top One Percent by the National Association of Distinguished Counsel (2019-2024).

Dean is the 2025 Chair of the Dallas Bar Association’s prestigious Business Litigation Section and sits on the DBA’s Judiciary Committee.

Company Name and Description: Certum Group offers a next-generation litigation risk transfer platform that provides bespoke solutions for companies, law firms, and funders facing the uncertainty of litigation. Latin for “certainty,” Certum represents the core benefit the company delivers to its clients across its entire suite of risk transfer solutions.  Certum is the full-service funding and insurance partner for law firms and their business clients.

Company Website: www.certumgroup.com

Year Founded: 2014 

Headquarters:  Plano, Texas

Area of Focus: Member: Head of Underwriting and Chair of the Investment Committee.

Member Quote: “Litigation funding doesn’t just fuel cases—it fuels justice. Power should never trump merit.”

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Inside India’s Insolvency Regime

By John Freund |

A new joint study by the Insolvency Law Academy and Burford Capital sheds light on how legal finance is gaining traction as a strategic tool in the India's insolvency processes. By enabling distressed entities and professionals to monetize contingent assets without exhausting limited estate resources, legal finance has the power to enhance liquidity and improve recovery outcomes for creditors.

An article by Burford Capital unveils how legal finance-backed structures can convert contingent claims into tangible value, supporting corporate continuity and delivering stronger creditor returns. The study highlights India’s unique factors: abundant untapped recoveries from avoidance claims and disputed receivables, widespread capital shortages faced by insolvency professionals, and the need for prompt liquidity solutions. It also references real-world case studies showcasing how legal finance facilitated strategic wins for firms like Hindustan Construction Company and Patel Engineering.

On the regulatory front, judicial rulings—such as in Tomorrow Sales v. SBS Holdings (2023)—have explicitly recognized the legitimacy of legal finance in India’s litigation ecosystem. Meanwhile, updates to the IBC now permit the assignment of “not readily reali[z]able assets” during liquidation, laying groundwork for integrating legal finance into the insolvency framework. Nonetheless, the regulatory landscape—including aspects of FEMA compliance and fund repatriation—remains cautiously permissive.

Emerging operational structures include direct estate financing, SPV‑based claim ring‑fencing, and creditor assignments for immediate value. The report urges a “light‑touch” regulatory approach, alongside the development of codes of conduct and educational efforts to arm insolvency professionals and creditors with the know‑how to deploy legal finance effectively.

Looking ahead, as India’s insolvency infrastructure matures, legal finance is poised to play a central role—unlocking value in distressed assets, bridging funding gaps, and aligning with global best practices.

Burford’s Law-Firm Investment Plan Draws Fire

By John Freund |

Burford Capital’s new push to take minority stakes in U.S. law firms is already meeting resistance from tort-reform advocates and insurer-aligned groups, who argue the structure could blur loyalties inside the attorney-client relationship. The plan, described by Burford’s chief development officer Travis Lenkner as “strategic minority investments” to help firms scale, would rely on managed service organizations (MSOs) that house back-office assets while leaving legal work to a lawyer-owned entity. Supporters cast it as a lawyer-friendly alternative to private equity; skeptics see a back-door end-run around state bars’ bans on non-lawyer ownership.

An article in Insurance Journal reports that critics, including the Florida Justice Reform Institute’s William Large, warn MSO-style deals could tilt decision-making toward investors focused on “big verdicts,” threatening firm independence and client interests. Only Arizona permits direct non-lawyer ownership today, and while Utah and Washington, D.C., have loosened rules at the margins, most states still enforce bright-line prohibitions.

The debate has sharpened as disclosure and licensing regimes proliferate: at least 16 states now require some level of third-party funding transparency. The Insurance Journal piece also notes a recent Texas Bar ethics opinion that green-lights MSOs for law-firm services under narrow conditions, though it doesn’t answer the broader question of outside investors’ influence. For its part, Burford says it understands the ethical guardrails and intends to be a passive investor focused on firm growth and operational support.

For the legal finance industry, the MSO path signals a pivotal test. If bars and courts accept these structures, capital could flow directly into firm operations—potentially accelerating portfolio origination, technology spend, and fee-earner leverage. If regulators balk, expect renewed calls for explicit rulemaking on ownership, disclosure, and control—alongside creative alternatives (credit facilities, revenue shares, and hybrid portfolios) to replicate MSO-like benefits without the governance controversy.

BHP Presses Gramercy–Pogust on Control of £36bn Claim

By John Freund |

A high-stakes governance fight is spilling into the UK’s largest group action. BHP has demanded clarity over hedge fund Gramercy Funds Management’s role at Pogust Goodhead, the claimant firm fronting a £36 billion suit tied to Brazil’s 2015 Mariana dam disaster. The miner’s counsel at Slaughter and May points to recent leadership turmoil at the firm and questions whether a non-lawyer financier can exert de facto control over litigation strategy—an issue that cuts to the heart of legal ethics and England & Wales’ restrictions on who can direct claims.

Financial Times reports that Gramercy, which finances Pogust, has just extended $65 million more to the firm after the removal of CEO-cofounder Tom Goodhead. BHP wants answers on independence and management oversight as the case nears a pivotal High Court ruling. For its part, Pogust says it remains independent and committed to its clients, while Gramercy rejects any suggestion it owns or manages the firm. The backdrop is familiar to funders: courts’ increasing scrutiny of who calls the shots when capital underwrites complex, bet-the-company litigation. Prior settlement overtures from BHP and Vale—reported at $1.4 billion—were rebuffed as insufficient relative to the claim’s scale and alleged harm.

Beyond this case, the episode underscores a larger question: how far can financing arrangements go before they collide with the long-standing principle that lawyers—and only lawyers—control litigation? The answer matters well beyond Mariana. If courts or legislators tighten the definition of control, expect deal terms, governance covenants, and disclosure norms in UK funding to evolve quickly. For cross-border mass-harm claims, the line between support and steer is narrowing—and being tested in real time.