Trending Now
Commercial Special Features

Key Takeaways from LFJ’s Virtual Town Hall: Spotlight on Insurance

By John Freund |
October 1, 2024

Key Takeaways from LFJ’s Virtual Town Hall: Spotlight on Insurance

On September 26th, LFJ hosted a virtual town hall titled “Spotlight on Insurance.” The panel discussion featured David Kerstein (DK), Founder and Managing Director at Arcadia Finance, Michael Perich (MP), Director, Head of Litigation Insurance at Lockton Companies, Steve Jones (SJ), Managing Director, M&A, Litigation and Tax Practice at Gallagher, and Jeremy Marshall, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director, Winward U.K. Limited. The panel was moderated by Jim Batson (JB), Chief Operating Officer at Westfleet Advisors.

Below are some key takeaways from the event:

JB: As Arcadia is a relatively new player in the litigation finance space, how has Arcadia incorporated insurance products into your underwriting and claims selection processes?

DK: As we were raising capital earlier this year, we explored using insurance to wrap a future portfolio, to potentially help drive fundraising and lower cost of capital. We weren’t able to do that as a first-time manager, but it’s something we’d like to explore in the future. We’re currently exploring traditional insurance products like JPI, and wrapping portfolios that may be on the edge of our mandate, and wrapping them in insurance would help us get to ‘yes.’

JB: So wrapping portfolios will help you look at some deals you might not otherwise consider?

DK: Exactly.

JB: Steve, can you give us an overview of the current Legal Insurance market? Especially focusing on recent developments in Capital Protection Insurance.

SJ: At the moment, I’m seeing a lot of innovation, so it seems like no two deals are the same, as there is a lot of creativity to get deals done. Very high submission rates, which probably suggests that knowledge of the products is increasing. And I see insurers and funders collaborating. It’s very seldom we see funders approach portfolio deals without thinking of insurance, and capital protection insurance (CPI) is the most obvious example of that. The net result of all of that is increased choice for clients, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

JB: Jeremy, how do you view the relationship between funders and insurers? Some have thought of insurers as competitors to litigation funders – an example is in the appeal context, where the client has the option of taking funding and de-risking immediately, or taking insurance and de-risking at conclusion of the matter. How do you see the relationship between insurers and funders evolving?

JM: I view it very much as a collaborative venture, for at least two specific reasons: One is the competition appeal tribunal (CAT) in the UK. You couldn’t go into the CAT without the support of the insurers. And that morphs into the concept of co-funding, which is growing. And you wouldn’t be able to do this without insurers, particularly when you’ve got a policy with an insurer and you’re invited to participate with somebody else, it might be syndicated with more than one funder– all the insurers are going to have positions in relation to that and you’re not going to get it off the ground without the insurers involved. It really is a team effort, as cases have lots of ups and downs.

Without a good relationship with an insurer, you’re not going to get off the ground. And particularly in a client-facing situation, you want insurers and funders to be speaking with the same voice, and often you’ll see in points of tension where clients and law firms sometimes, will try to play the ‘divide and rule game’ with insurers and funders. And we need to speak with a unified voice if we can. And I think that will grow in time, where insurers will play a bigger role in both the front and back end of a transaction.

JB: Michael, from your perspective, what are you seeing as the most interesting trends in terms of the intersection of insurance and litigation funding?

MP: Litigation insurance has been in the transaction space for quite a long time. What we’ve been seeing lately is a substantial uptick in deal flow based on increased awareness and knowledge of the product base. Some of that deal flow are things that are not insurable (in the US market) – things like portfolios of personal injury or mass tort cases. Those won’t be insurable in the US. But we’re seeing more IP and antitrust cases, and more interest around building a sustainable market that involves portfolio risks and complex pieces of commercial litigation that helps make a more efficient transaction for everybody. And that’s where all of the parties are getting more aligned. So over the past six months, we’ve been noticing a lot more collaboration and innovation lately, which is a good thing.

For the full panel discussion, please click here.

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

View All
Commercial

Jonathan Sablone Launches Sablone Advisory LLC, a Boutique Law and Advisory Firm Focused on Litigation Finance

By John Freund |

Jonathan Sablone, a commercial disputes attorney with three decades of cross-border, financial services, and litigation finance experience, has launched Sablone Advisory LLC — a Boston-based boutique positioned to serve claimants, funders, and insurers across the legal finance ecosystem under the tagline "at the intersection of law and finance™."

According to Sablone Advisory LLC, the new firm offers underwriting, diligence, monitoring, and asset management services to litigation funders and to insurers offering contingent risk products. On the claimant side, Sablone Advisory works with plaintiffs and their counsel to position cases for funding, including packaging case portfolios for cross-collateralized funding and insurance wrappers — services that have become increasingly central as funders and insurers structure deals across multiple matters and risk layers.

"I founded Sablone Advisory to assist clients with the most intractable problems and issues facing the legal finance industry," said Sablone in announcing the launch. "'At the intersection of law and finance' is not just a slogan, but a practical, commercial approach to legal problem-solving that I have practiced for decades."

The launch reflects a continuing trend in the litigation finance industry: senior practitioners with capital-markets and complex-litigation backgrounds spinning out of large institutional platforms to offer specialized, independent advisory and underwriting services. As funders increasingly structure portfolio-level deals, layer ATE and contingent risk insurance into capital stacks, and pursue cross-border recoveries, demand for senior independent diligence and asset management — particularly from professionals fluent in both legal strategy and structured finance — has grown.

For claimants and their counsel, the firm's case-positioning services are likely to resonate in a market where funders are increasingly selective about case quality, structure, and counsel pedigree. For funders and insurers, an independent boutique offering monitoring and asset management — separate from origination — represents the kind of service-provider infrastructure that more mature alternative-asset markets typically develop as they scale.

Inquiries can be directed to Jonathan Sablone at jsablone@sabloneadvisory.com or via www.sabloneadvisory.com.

Commercial

Colorado HB 1421 Targets PE and Non-Attorney Funding of Law Firms in Bipartisan Push

By John Freund |

Colorado lawmakers have introduced HB 1421, a bill that would sharply restrict the ability of state law firms to enter financial or contractual arrangements with alternative business structures (ABS) and any entity in which non-attorneys hold ownership stakes or exert direction over legal practice. The bill is notable both for the reach of its restrictions and for the unusual coalition behind it.

As reported by The Sum and Substance, the legislation is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey of Denver and Republican House Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell of Monument, with active support from the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association — typically opposing forces in business-litigation policy debates. The bill was scheduled for its first hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on April 29.

HB 1421 would prohibit Colorado law firms from entering arrangements with ABS-style structures relating to legal services, practicing in professional companies where non-lawyers own interests or direct lawyer judgment, or compensating any party where compensation depends on a percentage of legal fees or case recoveries. The bill would also empower courts to halt offending arrangements, order fee reimbursement to clients, and disgorge ABS profits derived from prohibited activities. The article specifically references Burford Capital's litigation funding presence in framing the bill's broader policy concern with non-lawyer financial stakes in legal outcomes.

The legislation lands at a moment when private equity ownership of legal services is expanding rapidly in jurisdictions that permit it — Arizona, Utah, and the District of Columbia — and where PE-backed national platforms are increasingly partnering with firms in non-ABS jurisdictions to extend their operating reach. The Colorado bill, if enacted, would cut against that expansion model by restricting how Colorado firms can collaborate with out-of-state, non-attorney-owned platforms.

For the litigation finance community, the bill is a meaningful data point. Although disclosure-based reform has dominated state-level TPLF debate in 2025-26, HB 1421 reflects a parallel and somewhat different policy thrust: not transparency about funding, but structural limits on the ownership and economic relationships that surround legal practice. The convergence of plaintiffs' bar and chamber-of-commerce support behind a single bill is itself rare, and may presage similar coalitions in other non-ABS states facing PE-driven consolidation pressure.

Commercial

Triple-I Tracks the State-Level Wave of Third-Party Litigation Funding Reform

By John Freund |

A new Triple-I research piece outlines the rapidly expanding state-level reform agenda targeting third-party litigation funding, with disclosure mandates, foreign-funder bans, and registration regimes advancing in legislatures across the country as federal action remains slower-moving.

According to Triple-I's Lewis Nibbelin, Georgia led the most consequential 2025 round of reform with legislation requiring litigation financiers to register with the Department of Banking and Finance and prohibiting funder influence over case outcomes — measures that Triple-I links to subsequent auto insurance rate reductions and dividends to Georgia drivers. Louisiana followed with its widely covered Department of Insurance partnership with the NICB and 4WARN to combat TPLF marketing tactics, alongside legislation requiring attorneys to disclose TPLF contracts within 30 days of retainer or funding execution.

Other states are moving in parallel. Mississippi's new law, effective July 1, mandates disclosure of foreign litigation funding to address concerns about exploitation by non-U.S. entities. Utah passed comparable restrictions in March 2026. Michigan's House committee bill — already covered in LFJ — would ban foreign TPLF entirely while requiring disclosure and registration of all funders. Missouri, Tennessee, and Ohio are advancing similar foreign-funding bans, with the Tennessee and Ohio bills already passing their respective state Houses.

The piece references a joint NICB/4WARN study quantifying the scale of the consumer-facing TPLF market: $380 million in online search advertising between June 2024 and June 2025, and 27.8 million clicks to TPLF websites in June 2025 alone. Triple-I cites broader tort cost figures from the Perryman Group and Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse — including $35.8 billion in direct annual losses and roughly $600 per U.S. household — to frame the policy stakes.

Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, quoted in the piece, framed the partnership as protecting citizens "from opportunists who manipulate the claims process to fuel excessive litigation, which is a primary driver of our high insurance costs." For commercial litigation funders, the rapid proliferation of state-level disclosure and foreign-funder-ban regimes represents a meaningful compliance overlay — particularly for cross-border deals and structured funding vehicles where investor identity, jurisdiction, and reporting timing now vary materially by state.