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Community Spotlight: Ronit Cohen, Founder and Managing Director, Arcadia Finance

By John Freund |
October 23, 2024

Community Spotlight: Ronit Cohen, Founder and Managing Director, Arcadia Finance

A long-time litigation funding professional and former trial lawyer, Ronit Cohen is considered among the most experienced legal finance underwriting counsel in the U.S. After working as a litigator at Simpson Thacher and O’Melveny and Myers, she joined the burgeoning funding industry in 2012, first at Bentham IMF, now Omni Bridgeway, where she helped launch their first office, and then at Validity Finance, where in addition to serving as a member of the Risk Monitoring Team, she headed up a pro bono effort to provide capital to wrongfully accused individuals during the pendency of their civil actions. She co-founded Arcadia Finance in June of 2024, and serves as Managing Director along with co-founders David Kerstein and Joshua Libling.

Company Name and Description: At Arcadia Finance, we go beyond traditional litigation finance to provide frictionless funding, empowering clients and partners to achieve their legal goals through customized financial solutions and unparalleled support. Our seamless collaboration, clear deal terms, and broad mandate empower clients to navigate challenges, make informed decisions, and secure capital – fast. Led by industry veterans with over $400 million invested across 80+ deals, Arcadia Finance offers adaptable solutions for all–from litigation boutiques to AmLaw firms and corporations. Arcadia Finance’s mission is to invest in meritorious litigation, and with backing from multiple and flexible capital providers, we find new ways to help clients and law firms finance, monetize, and share risk on their legal assets. Our solutions include everything from traditional single-case funding and law firms portfolios, to purchasing companies or patent portfolios whose primary value is litigation. At every stage from pre-litigation to appeal and enforcement, Arcadia has the experience, flexibility, and capital to assist.

Company Website: arcadiafin.com

Year Founded: 2024

Headquarters: New York, New York

Area of Focus: With a focus on U.S.-based commercial and patent litigation and domestic and international arbitration, Arcadia Finance is open to the full spectrum of litigation-based assets, from mass torts to law firm lending to patent acquisition, including cross-border and offshore matters. We consider cases in all federal and state courts, as well domestic and international arbitrations.    

Member Quote: “I believe litigation funding is essential for a balanced legal system. It empowers clients with valid claims to seek justice, even when facing well-resourced opponents.”

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

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Commercial

Five Years On, Arizona’s ABS Data Shows No Systemic Ethical Breakdown, Article Argues

An article published in the Arizona State University Corporate and Business Law Journal argues that five years of operating data under Arizona's Alternative Business Structure framework has not produced the ethical failures its opponents predicted, and that the debate is moving from theoretical objections to observable outcomes.

Writing in the ASU Corporate and Business Law Journal, Alex Chucri traces the framework to August 2020, when Arizona became the first state to eliminate ABA Model Rule 5.4 and permit non-lawyer ownership of law firms, with the ABS regime taking effect on January 1, 2021 under Arizona Supreme Court order R-20-0034. The central claim is structural: the state did not remove oversight so much as replace blanket prohibition with licensing, compliance obligations and regulatory accountability. Non-lawyers may hold equity, share profits and participate in management, but only under Supreme Court supervision, with approved compliance counsel, reporting procedures and audit requirements.

The article marshals the program's numbers. Licenses grew from two approvals in 2020 to 15 in 2021 and 25 in each of 2022 and 2023, reaching approximately 150 licensed entities by March 2026, with 114 ABSs actively operating during 2024. No ethics complaints were filed against ABS entities in the program's first three years; the first arrived in 2024, when the State Bar initiated disciplinary action involving two ABS-affiliated attorneys. A preliminary analysis of 2024 disciplinary actions, which the author acknowledges is limited by incomplete ABS staffing data, suggests ABS-affiliated lawyers faced discipline at a rate well below the broader Arizona attorney population.

Readers should weigh the source. Chucri is founder and CEO of Pravati Capital and in 2024 founded 1787 Legal Group, the Scottsdale ABS the article offers as its case in point. The argument nonetheless lands at a moment when several states, Illinois among them this week, are moving in the opposite direction, and Arizona remains the only jurisdiction with a five-year record to argue from.

Commercial

IVO Capital Partners’ Michael Israel Named Fund Manager of the Month

Michael Israel, chairman and co-founder of IVO Capital Partners, has been named Fund Manager of the Month by RankiaPro, in a profile that traces his path from Paribas and Merrill Lynch to building one of Europe's more active litigation finance investors.

As reported by RankiaPro, Israel founded IVO Capital with Sidney Oury in 2012 following the Lehman Brothers collapse, which he describes as the defining moment of his career. He manages the funds in the IVO range and sits on the investment committee for the firm's litigation finance funds. The Paris-based manager oversees approximately €1.3 billion across listed credit and private credit, with litigation finance and venture debt forming the private side of the book.

The interview is largely a general reflection on investing rather than a litigation finance discussion, but Israel's framing carries over to how IVO approaches the asset class. He describes the cornerstone of the firm's method as an asymmetry lens, consistently assessing how much can be made against how much can be lost and under what scenarios, and highlights strategic importance as an underappreciated form of downside protection. He also argues the industry's principal edge lies less in analysis than in the willingness to act and then continuously reassess.

IVO has been visible in the sector over the past year. The firm launched IVO Legal Strategies Fund IV targeting €150 million, backed a €673 million Dutch consumer claim against Netflix over pricing practices, and joined both the European Litigation Funders Association and the International Legal Finance Association.

The recognition is a mainstream asset management outlet treating a litigation finance allocator as a credit manager, which is roughly the positioning European funders have been working toward.

Commercial

Investment Note Argues Omni Bridgeway Is Undervalued After Sector Reset

An investment commentary published this week makes the case that Omni Bridgeway's shares do not reflect the quality of its legal assets platform, following a broad repricing across the litigation finance sector.

As reported by Livewire Markets, the piece characterises the ASX-listed company as a fund manager operating in a unique and high-returning asset class, argues that valuation support is clear at current levels, and points to a final close on fund raising expected during August as a near-term catalyst.

The argument rests on operating results the company disclosed at the end of July. Omni Bridgeway reported record FY26 new conditional and unconditional commitments of A$712.2 million across 43 new investments, roughly 38% above FY25, alongside record cash investment proceeds. The company has spent recent years shifting from a balance sheet funder to a manager of third-party capital, a transition given its clearest expression in the A$320 million secondary market transaction with Ares Management completed last year.

The sector reset referenced in the note has been visible across listed funders through 2026, with Burford absorbing a $2.4 billion write-down tied to the YPF reversal and Litigation Capital Management working through covenant waivers. Investors have applied that scepticism broadly, including to managers whose economics depend on fee income from committed funds rather than on outcomes in individual matters.

Whether that distinction gets recognised in pricing is the open question, and the completion of the current fundraising will supply a concrete test of institutional appetite at a moment when the asset class is being reassessed.