Trending Now
Community Spotlights

Community Spotlight: Garrett Ordower, Partner, Scale LLP

By John Freund |
April 3, 2025

Community Spotlight: Garrett Ordower, Partner, Scale LLP

Garrett is a seasoned attorney and head of Scale LLP’s Litigation Finance Team. With extensive experience across both commercial and consumer litigation finance sectors, Garrett brings a uniquely comprehensive perspective to the field. He has developed specialized expertise in sourcing, evaluating, structuring, and managing diverse funding arrangements, from single-case investments to complex law firm portfolio facilities. Throughout his career, Garrett has successfully navigated intricate and often contentious workouts involving various stakeholders, including claimholders, attorneys, funders, and medical providers.

Beyond traditional litigation finance, Garrett has emerged as a thought leader in legal innovation. He advises on sophisticated structuring and ethics issues for startups in litigation finance, LegalTech, JusticeTech, and advises on a broad range of ethics issues including emerging issues relating to the use of artificial intelligence to deliver legal services to both consumers and businesses. His expertise extends to alternative business structures and two-company models that enable innovative legal service delivery while maintaining ethical compliance. Garrett is licensed to practice in New York, Illinois, and Arizona.

Garrett began his career as a litigator at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, engaging in significant litigation and white collar matters. He then transitioned to one of the pioneering commercial litigation funders, Lake Whillans Litigation Finance, as a managing director. At Lake Whillans, Garrett participated in tens of millions in litigation finance deals including asset purchases, law firm lending portfolios, and claimholder funding. His articles on litigation finance topics have been widely published, and he was recognized as one of Lawdragon’s Global 100 Leaders in Litigation Finance.

Garrett then joined Mighty Group, Inc., as its General Counsel following the company’s Series B raise. He handled all legal aspects of Mighty’s significant consumer litigation finance portfolio, which included investments in medical receivables, pre-settlement advances, and law firm lending. Garrett also played a pivotal role in helping Mighty create an innovative tech-forward competitor to existing personal injury law firms.

Since joining Scale, Garrett has focused his practice on helping innovative companies in the legal and litigation finance spaces. As head of the Litigation Finance Team, Garrett has helped litigation finance companies with fund structures, commercial and consumer transactions, and ethics and regulatory advice. Garrett has also advised a wide variety of LegalTech and JusticeTech companies on structuring their businesses in order to achieve their goals in an ethical and compliant manner, including doing so through the use of AI.

Prior to practicing, Garrett graduated from the University of Chicago Law School where he was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law Review, and clerked on the Northern District of Illinois and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Garrett maintains an active pro bono practice and recently secured the vacatur of his client’s manslaughter conviction. Prior to law school, Garrett worked as a newspaper reporter and investigative journalist.

Company Name and Description: Scale LLP, a full-service, national law firm that rethinks the traditional law firm model. Scale provides a tech-forward, distributed platform that reduces overhead and increases efficiency to offer the best legal talent at a competitive price-point.

Company Website: scalefirm.com

Year Founded: 2017

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Area of Focus: Scale LLP’s Litigation Finance Team delivers comprehensive solutions across the entire litigation funding ecosystem. We provide specialized counsel to litigation finance companies, claimholders, law firms, and investors, drawing on our team’s firsthand experience having worked on all sides of litigation finance transactions. Our services encompass fund formation, deal structuring, portfolio construction, regulatory compliance, and workout solutions and litigation related to distressed assets.

Our practice uniquely bridges both commercial and consumer litigation finance sectors, allowing us to develop innovative hybrid approaches that maximize return while managing risk appropriately. We combine deep litigation experience with sophisticated financial structuring capabilities to deliver practical advice on complex transactions ranging from single-case investments to multi-jurisdictional portfolio facilities.

Beyond traditional litigation finance, we lead the field in advising LegalTech and JusticeTech companies on cutting-edge business models that navigate regulatory complexity while promoting greater access to justice. We provide guidance on artificial intelligence implementation in legal services, addressing both the transformative potential and ethical challenges presented by these technologies. Our attorneys have pioneered compliant structures for alternative business arrangements in both traditional and emerging jurisdictions, helping clients develop sustainable competitive advantages through regulatory innovation.

Member Quote: “I work at the intersection of law, finance, and technology because I believe these convergent forces can transform our legal system. By leveraging litigation finance, legal innovation, and AI tools thoughtfully, we can build a more equitable legal landscape where outcomes are determined by merits rather than resources. Every day, I work with visionaries who are dismantling outdated structures and creating something more efficient, accessible, and just. This evolution not only enhances access to justice but also creates compelling investment opportunities in a market ripe for transformation.”

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

View All
Announcements Commercial

Longford Capital Doubles Down to Support American Innovation

By John Freund |

Longford Capital Management, LP today announced that it has launched the Longford Capital American Innovation Initiative to help American inventors protect their legal rights, access the U.S. legal system, and advance American innovation.

America is the greatest country in the world and Americans are achieving advancements in every facet of our lives, including healthcare, artificial intelligence, clean energy, technology, aerospace, cybersecurity, transportation, wireless communications, and many others. Intellectual property is critical to American exceptionalism and national security. American inventors are systematically the victims of intellectual property theft at the hands of foreign and domestic bad actors. Well-financed multi-national corporations steal the innovations of small and medium size American companies leaving them will little options to protect their legal rights in the expensive U.S. legal system. For more than a decade, Longford has been supporting American inventors, investing approximately $500 million to support nearly 100 intellectual property owners trying to defend their assets. These efforts have resulted in recoveries of more than $1.5 billion from patent infringers.

Take, for example, Malcolm Beyer, Jr., a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, retired Captain in the U.S. Marines, and small business owner. His company developed a communication system that increases safety and operational effectiveness for the U.S. military, law enforcement, and first responders. When his patented technology was infringed by foreign companies, he didn’t have the money to defend his legal rights in court. He turned to Longford Capital. Longford provided millions of dollars to pay his legal fees, which allowed Mr. Beyer to successfully defend his legal rights and protect his innovation. Without access to litigation finance, Malcolm Beyer’s company would not have survived.

Today, we are ramping up our efforts to support our country, American inventors, small and medium size businesses, and the advancement of American exceptionalism. The ability to protect innovation through the patent system and the U.S. legal system is essential to attract investment and encourage the best and brightest Americans to dedicate their careers to improving our lives. Longford’s funding empowers American innovation and makes America stronger. Members of Longford’s legal team are perennially recognized as leading IP strategists with an established record of developing and implementing world-class IP value creation programs for American companies.

About Longford Capital

Longford Capital is a leading private investment company that provides capital to leading law firms, public and private companies, research universities, government agencies, and other entities involved in large-scale, commercial legal disputes. Longford was one of the first litigation funds in the United States and is among the world’s largest litigation finance companies with more than $1.2 billion in assets under management. Typically, Longford funds attorneys’ fees and other costs necessary to pursue meritorious legal claims in return for a share of a favorable settlement or award. The firm manages a diversified portfolio, and considers investments in subject matter areas where it has developed considerable expertise, including, business-to-business contract claims, antitrust and trade regulation claims, intellectual property claims (including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret), fiduciary duty claims, fraud claims, claims in bankruptcy and liquidation, domestic and international arbitrations, claim monetization, insurance matters, and a variety of others.

Commercial Legal Innovation

Startup Founder Touts Data-Driven Funding Model

By John Freund |

A litigation funding startup founder is making the case that technology, disciplined underwriting, and alignment with law firms will define the next phase of growth in the funding industry.

In Part II of its interview series, Above the Law spotlights the founder’s views on building a differentiated funding platform in an increasingly competitive market. The discussion centers on how newer entrants can compete with established players by leveraging data analytics, focusing on select case types, and maintaining tight operational controls. Rather than pursuing volume for its own sake, the founder emphasizes a strategy built around rigorous case selection and long-term partnerships with law firms.

A key theme in the interview is the importance of underwriting discipline. The founder notes that not all meritorious cases make good investments, underscoring the need to evaluate damages models, collectability, and litigation timelines with precision. Technology plays a central role in that process, with analytics tools helping to assess risk factors and identify patterns across similar claims. This approach, the founder argues, allows the company to move efficiently while avoiding the pitfalls of overly aggressive capital deployment.

The interview also touches on market education. Despite litigation finance’s growing acceptance, misconceptions persist among lawyers and corporate stakeholders. The founder suggests that transparency around pricing, control, and alignment of interests remains critical to winning trust—particularly among firms that may be considering funding for the first time.

Commercial

AI Reshapes Mass Torts With Cost-Saving Promise

By John Freund |

Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving from a back-office efficiency tool to a central driver of strategy in mass tort litigation, with significant implications for plaintiff firms, defense counsel, and the litigation funding community.

An article in Bloomberg Law explores how AI-powered tools are transforming the economics of large-scale product liability and personal injury cases. From claimant intake and medical record review to document analysis and settlement modeling, AI platforms are enabling law firms to process vast amounts of data at a fraction of the traditional cost and time. In mass torts—where tens of thousands of claims can hinge on nuanced medical and factual distinctions—these efficiencies are particularly valuable.

According to the report, firms are deploying AI to automate the review of medical records, identify injury patterns, and categorize claimants more quickly. This not only reduces overhead, but also enhances early case assessment, helping firms determine which claims warrant full investment. On the defense side, corporate legal teams are leveraging similar technologies to assess exposure and streamline discovery. The result is a technological arms race in high-volume litigation.

While some observers raise concerns about accuracy, oversight, and ethical guardrails, proponents argue that AI can reduce administrative waste and free attorneys to focus on higher-value legal analysis. Vendors servicing the mass tort bar are also positioning AI as a way to increase access to justice by lowering the cost of bringing claims that might otherwise be economically unviable.