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Community Spotlight: Philippa Wilkinson, Associate Director, S-RM

By John Freund |

Community Spotlight: Philippa Wilkinson, Associate Director, S-RM

Philippa Wilkinson is an Associate Director on S-RM’s Disputes & Investigations team, which is dedicated to providing investigative support to parties to contentious situations. She has experience managing asset tracing investigations, as well as litigation and arbitration support engagements, associated with complex corporate disputes. While her practice is global, Philippa specialises in matters involving Middle Eastern parties, having spent several years in the Middle East, living and working in Tunisia and the UAE. She previously worked as a journalist covering finance and infrastructure in the GCC and wider Middle East, and subsequently covering European infrastructure funds. Philippa has an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of African and Oriental Studies, and a BA in Modern Languages from Durham University. She is a fluent Arabic, Spanish and French speaker.

Company Name and Description: S-RM is a global risk and intelligence consultancy. Founded in 2005, our staff comprises 350+ practitioners across eight international offices, serving clients across all regions and major sectors. Headquartered in London with offices in Cape Town, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Utrecht and Washington, D.C., we support our clients by providing intelligence that informs critical decision-making and strategies.

Our dedicated Disputes & Investigations practice was established to provide specialist support to clients engaged in contentious situations. Our intelligence is deployed in a number of scenarios including litigation, international arbitration, internal investigations and investigations related to sanctions or fraud. We provide a full spectrum of dispute-focused services including asset tracing and enforcement strategy; litigation support; eDiscovery and digital forensics; and strategic intelligence. S-RM’s investigators sit alongside cyber security experts and seasoned crisis managers. Our investigations involve their collaboration on a regular basis, be it for physical surveillance, expert witness support, or digital forensics. Since 2021, our practice has received international recognition by leading legal directories, including Chambers & Partners and Who Who’s Legal (Lexology Index).

S-RM’s research and analysis is provided by six regional teams, which provide expert coverage of a range of jurisdictions globally, from the most prominent to some of the smallest and most obscure. Collectively, S-RM’s analysts and managers speak over 45 languages and have come to the business from a broad range of sectors including intelligence, government, finance, journalism, the military and academia. Each team is adept at locating hard-to-find public records and has built an extensive network of human sources on the ground in their region. On every project, we bring together the most relevant and experienced practitioners from across our business, creating teams designed to address unique problems and complex challenges.

Company Website: https://www.s-rminform.com/

Year Founded: 2005 

Headquarters: 4th Floor Beaufort House, 15 St Botolph Street, London, Greater London, EC3A 7DT 

Area of Focus: Corporate intelligence  

Member Quote: “Through our asset tracing work and enforcement advisory, we make sure a judgment or an award is not just a very expensive piece of paper, but a pathway to recovery.”

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

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King & Spalding Sued Over Litigation Funding Ties and Overbilling Claims

By John Freund |

King and Spalding is facing a malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit from former client David Pisor, a Chicago-based entrepreneur, who claims the law firm pushed him into a predatory litigation funding deal and massively overbilled him for legal services. The complaint, filed in Illinois state court, accuses the firm of inflating its rates midstream and steering Pisor toward a funding agreement that primarily served the firm's financial interests.

An article in Law.com reports that the litigation stems from King and Spalding's representation of Pisor and his company, PSIX LLC, in a 2021 dispute. According to the complaint, the firm directed him to enter a funding arrangement with an entity referred to in court as “Defendant SC220163,” which is affiliated with litigation funder Statera Capital Funding. Pisor alleges that after securing the funding, King and Spalding tied its fee structure to it, raised hourly rates, and billed over 3,000 hours across 30 staff and attorneys within 11 months, resulting in more than $3.5 million in fees.

The suit further alleges that many of these hours were duplicative, non-substantive, or billed at inflated rates, with non-lawyer work charged at partner-level fees. Pisor claims he was left with minimal control over his case and business due to the debt incurred through the funding arrangement, despite having a company valued at over $130 million at the time.

King and Spalding, along with the associated litigation funder, declined to comment. The lawsuit brings multiple claims including legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and violations of Illinois’ Consumer Legal Funding Act.

Legal Finance and Insurance: Burford, Parabellum Push Clarity Over Confrontation

By John Freund |

An article in Carrier Management highlights a rare direct dialogue between litigation finance leaders and insurance executives aimed at clearing up persistent misconceptions about the role of legal finance in claims costs and social inflation.

Burford Capital’s David Perla and Parabellum Capital’s Dai Wai Chin Feman underscore that much of the current debate stems from confusion over what legal finance actually is and what it is not. The pair participated in an Insurance Insider Executive Business Club roundtable with property and casualty carriers and stakeholders, arguing that the litigation finance industry’s core activities are misunderstood and mischaracterized. They contend that legal finance should not be viewed as monolithic and that policy debates often conflate fundamentally different segments of the market, leading to misdirected criticism and calls for boycotts.

Perla and Feman break legal finance into three distinct categories: commercial funding (non-recourse capital for complex business-to-business disputes), consumer funding (non-recourse advances in personal injury contexts), and law firm lending (recourse working capital loans).

Notably, commercial litigation finance often intersects with contingent risk products like judgment preservation and collateral protection insurance, demonstrating symbiosis rather than antagonism with insurers. They emphasize that commercial funders focus on meritorious, high-value cases and that these activities bear little resemblance to the injury litigation insurers typically cite when claiming legal finance drives inflation.

The authors also tackle common industry narratives head-on, challenging assumptions about funder influence on verdicts, market scale, and settlement incentives. They suggest that insurers’ concerns are driven less by legal finance itself and more by issues like mass tort exposure, opacity of investment vehicles, and alignment with defense-oriented lobbying groups.

Courmacs Legal Leverages £200M in Legal Funding to Fuel Claims Expansion

By John Freund |

A prominent North West-based claimant law firm is setting aside more than £200 million to fund a major expansion in personal injury and assault claims. The substantial reserve is intended to support the firm’s continued growth in high-volume litigation, as it seeks to scale its operations and increase its market share in an increasingly competitive sector.

As reported in The Law Gazette, the move comes amid rising volumes of claims, driven by shifts in legislation, heightened public awareness, and a more assertive approach to legal redress. With this capital reserve, the firm aims to bolster its ability to process a significantly larger caseload while managing rising operational costs and legal pressures.

Market watchers suggest the firm is positioning itself not only to withstand fluctuations in claim volumes but also to potentially emerge as a consolidator in the space, absorbing smaller firms or caseloads as part of a broader growth strategy.

From a legal funding standpoint, this development signals a noteworthy trend. When law firms build sizable internal war chests, they reduce their reliance on third-party litigation finance. This may impact demand for external funders, particularly in sectors where high-volume claimant firms dominate. It also brings to the forefront important questions about capital risk, sustainability, and the evolving economics of volume litigation. Should the number of claims outpace expectations, even a £200 million reserve could be put under pressure.