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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.”

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John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

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Case Developments Commercial

Woolworths Faces Shareholder Class Action Over Underpayments

By John Freund |

Woolworths Group is facing a new shareholder class action that alleges the company misled investors about the scale and financial impact of underpaying salaried employees. The action, backed by Litigation Lending Services, adds a fresh legal front to the long-running fallout from Woolworths’ wage compliance failures.

According to AFR, at the heart of the claim is the allegation that Woolworths did not adequately inform the market about the risks posed by its reliance on annualised salary structures and set-off clauses. These payment methods averaged compensation over longer periods instead of ensuring employees received correct pay entitlements for each pay period. This included overtime, penalty rates, and other award entitlements.

Recent decisions by the Federal Court of Australia have clarified that such set-off practices are non-compliant under modern awards. Employers must now ensure all entitlements are met for each pay period and maintain detailed records of employee hours. These rulings significantly raise the compliance bar and have increased financial exposure for large employers like Woolworths, which has tens of thousands of salaried employees.

As a result, Woolworths could face hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation costs. The shareholder class action argues that Woolworths failed to disclose the magnitude of these potential liabilities in a timely or accurate way. Investors claim that this omission amounts to misleading conduct, and that they were not fully informed of the risks when making investment decisions.

Case Developments Commercial

Parabellum Capital Named in Goldstein Criminal Disclosure

By John Freund |

Tom Goldstein, the former SCOTUSblog co-founder and prominent appellate advocate, has named Parabellum Capital as the litigation funder at the center of a federal indictment accusing him of misappropriating legal financing to pay off personal debts.

Bloomberg Law reports that in a court filing made last week, Goldstein disclosed that he used advances from Parabellum to cover non-litigation-related expenses, including the purchase of a multimillion-dollar home. The revelation comes amid federal charges alleging that Goldstein misused firm funds to settle gambling losses and personal obligations, then mischaracterized those payments as business expenses. Prosecutors previously referred to an unnamed funder involved in these transactions; Parabellum is now confirmed to be that firm.

Goldstein’s disclosure appears to be part of a strategic legal response to mounting charges of tax evasion and financial misrepresentation. Once a high-profile figure in Supreme Court litigation, Goldstein now faces scrutiny not only for alleged personal financial misconduct but also for the implications his actions may have on the litigation finance ecosystem.

While Parabellum has not been accused of any wrongdoing, the situation highlights a key risk in the litigation funding model: the potential for funds advanced against anticipated case proceeds to be diverted toward unrelated personal uses. Funders traditionally require that capital be deployed for case expenses, legal fees, and expert costs—not real estate acquisitions or debt payments.

This case underscores a growing concern in the legal funding industry: the need for tighter controls, enhanced due diligence, and possibly more explicit regulatory frameworks to ensure that funding agreements are not exploited. As the industry continues to mature, episodes like this could shape how funders vet borrowers and monitor the use of their capital.

Commercial

Litigation Finance Hits Wall as Bets on Blockbuster Returns Flounder

By John Freund |

At a Fall conference hosted by law firm Brown Rudnick, attendees from across the litigation finance industry voiced growing concern about the sector’s prospects, signaling what may be a turning point for a business long hyped for outsized returns.

According to Yahoo Finance, many in attendance described a drain in new investment and increasing skepticism that big wins, once seen as routine, will materialize. In recent years, funders have aggressively financed high-stakes lawsuits with the expectation that a handful of big verdicts or settlements would deliver significant payouts. But now, as legal outcomes remain unpredictable and returns disappoint, investors appear to be pulling back. Some funders are reportedly limiting new deals, tightening criteria for which cases to support, or reevaluating their business models altogether.

For smaller plaintiffs and everyday plaintiffs’ firms, the contraction in funding availability could prove especially painful. The ripple effects may leave many without access to third-party capital needed to bridge the lengthy wait until verdict. And for funders, the shrinking appetite for risk could mean narrower portfolios and potentially lower returns overall.

The industry’s recalibration may also carry broader implications. Fewer fundings could slow litigation overall. Plaintiffs may see reduced leverage while funders may prioritize lower-risk, smaller-return cases. The shift could further concentrate power among a shrinking number of large, well-capitalized funders.

As the post-conference murmur becomes a chorus, the once-booming litigation finance sector may be entering a more sober phase — where hope for home-run returns gives way to caution, discipline, and perhaps a redefinition of what success looks like.