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An LFJ Conversation with Joshua Coleman‑Pecha, Senior Associate, Holman Fenwick Willan

By John Freund |
January 21, 2025

An LFJ Conversation with Joshua Coleman‑Pecha, Senior Associate, Holman Fenwick Willan

Joshua Coleman-Pecha is a senior international construction, infrastructure and technology dispute specialist working in the MENA region. He advises on construction and technology projects from inception to completion. Joshua is a qualified solicitor advocate, meaning he has rights of audience in the courts of England & Wales, and is a PRINCE 2 qualified project manager.

Joshua advises on all aspects of complex dispute avoidance and resolution. He has represented several clients in billion-dollar disputes before a variety of arbitral institutions including ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL, DIAC, and SCCA. He has experience handling disputes under the governing laws of England & Wales, the UAE, Saudi, and Qatar.

Joshua’s recent significant work includes advising in relation to oil and gas processing facilities, drilling contracts (onshore and offshore), a water desalinisation plant, a battery energy storage park, the MENA region’s largest metro system, and a major railroad and metro project in the UAE and Saudi respectively. Joshua has experience of projects across the region having handled disputes in, for example, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Turkey. His clients include international oil & gas companies, refining and petrochemical companies, EPC contractors, oil & gas service companies, EPC employers, and international technology providers. Finally, he acts in a hybrid role as general counsel to a billion dollar pharmaceutical company based in the UAE.

Joshua was recently recognized as a ‘Key Lawyer’ in Oil, Gas and Natural Resources by Legal 500 2024. He is also a member of various construction industry associations and a contributing member of the Legal Funding Journal.

Below is our LFJ Conversation with Joshua Coleman‑Pecha: The MENA region, and Saudi Arabia in particular, is a growing jurisdiction in the global legal funding market.  What has hindered funders from embracing this market in the past, and why the change–what has prompted more funders to take an interest in this part of the world? 

I think there have been a few factors that have limited funders’ interest in operating in the Saudi market, or, financing disputes that involve Saudi law and / or Saudi Courts.

First, the high-level point is that legal funding is not prohibited under Saudi law. However, until now, in Saudi and across the GCC, whilst the view has been that written laws do not prohibit legal funding, there has been a high degree of uncertainty as to how, in practice, the courts would treat parties backed by legal funders. Quite understandably, legal funders and litigants have been hesitant to be the ‘test cases’ on which this issue is examined. To some extent I think this hesitancy remains, though it is decreasing as GCC countries refine their laws and legal practice, and legal funders look to the growing markets across the GCC for new opportunities.

Second, for many years Sharia has been the dominant system of law in Saudi. Sharia law is a huge subject, and it is impossible to consider all the aspects of it here. However, in summary, it is a combination of several different texts and is subject to several schools of legal interpretation. As with other GCC countries, Saudi is a civil law system, and does not rely on binding precedent. It may be that legal funders have been hesitant to make investments in an environment that they don’t feel they fully understand. However, in recent times, Saudi has taken significant strides towards codifying its laws. All GCC countries are on this path to a greater or lesser extent, which helps provide certainty. In addition, with better recording and proliferation of court judgments and legal knowledge across the entire market, my sense is that international investors are becoming more confident in these surroundings.

Third, all GCC countries have been signatories to the New York Convention for some time. However, recent years have seen an acceleration of arbitration across the GCC, as recognition of the jurisdiction of arbitral tribunals and willingness to enforce arbitral awards increases. In Saudi, part of the country’s ‘Vision 2023’ is to have the leading arbitral institution in the Middle East, and be considered one of the leading arbitral institutions worldwide. Saudi has implemented a new Arbitration Law, and the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA) has received significant investment, allowing it to hire globally recognised practitioners to join its senior ranks. Its rules are based on UNCITRAL rules and were updated in 2023 to reflect the most modern sets of arbitral rules globally.

Fourth, through discussion with various funders, my understanding of their view is that investing in Saudi is outside their commercial risk parameters. Factors such as uncertainty over duration of legal proceedings, lack of knowledge of Sharia, and questions over enforcement have made it difficult to determine likely ROI. Certainty over enforcement of arbitral awards in Saudi is increasing and the reasons for this are discussed below / later.

Finally, from the perspective of a funded party, and bearing in mind a lot of these parties are contractors in the construction industry, I think there is hesitancy to use legal funding as it can wipe out profit margins.

You deal with the Saudi construction claims sector specifically. What is the TAM of this market, and why should litigation funders take an interest here? 

The market is huge. Focusing just on the projects sector alone, there are approximately USD 1.8trn of projects planned or underway in Saudi (USD 330bn of which are already underway), making it the largest market in the MENA region. Over the last five years, the Saudi projects sector has, on average, awarded USD 60bn of projects a year, which looks set to grow year-on-year to around USD 80bn by 2028.

It is impossible to accurately estimate the number or value of disputes emanating from these projects. Of course, arbitration is private, but also many issues or disputes will not come to light due to being settled through commercial negotiations. We do know that right now approximately 440 projects in Saudi are identified as being ‘on hold’ (which means there is almost certainly going to be some form of dispute arising) with a combined value of USD 231bn. As the number and value of projects approaching completion or achieving completion increases, I expect to see these figures grow.

How do claimants and litigators on the ground feel about litigation funding? How do they look at the practice from both an economic and cultural perspective? 

For the reasons discussed above, legal funding has yet to proliferate in GCC countries. My experience is that, at best, many legal advisors (both in private practice and in-house) and potential litigants have limited knowledge about legal funding and are therefore sceptical of its merits. At worst, these parties may not know anything about legal funding at all, or, have a misunderstanding of what it is about and how it can help. I believe that education is needed before legal funding can be considered ‘mainstream’ in this region.

Where legal funding may be better known is amongst international entities (like international contractors) operating in Saudi or the wider GCC. However, even where there more understanding as regards the concept and a willingness to consider it as an option, barriers remain. For example, contractors are often put off legal funding when the cost is revealed.

Construction disputes are often fact heavy, require a significant amount of analysis before funders can begin to assess the merits, and, if they go to trial, will require lengthy investment periods. All this means that funder risk goes up, so the required returns go up, which can seriously damage contractor profits. There’s little point in a contractor taking funding if it’s going to wipe out the contractor’s profit margin on the underlying project.

My personal view is that discussion between contractors and funders can yield a solution. On the one hand contractors may be persuaded to take funding based on a holistic view of its financial benefits. Portfolio funding may make taking funding economically palatable to contractors. However, also in my view, the greatest opportunity for striking investment deals lies in the fact that both employers and contractors tend to want to settle disputes at the earliest opportunity. If legal funders are willing to take this into account, it may shift the investment metrics sufficiently to make legal funding attractive to all parties.

What about enforcement in Saudi Arabia? How much of a concern is this, and what steps should funders take to allay their concerns about enforcement over a specific claim? 

The laws

Saudi has been signatory to the New York convention since 1994. However, its arbitration friendliness has increased massively in the last few years, including the creation of the previously mentioned SCCA in 2016. In addition, two key rules have been promulgated:

In 2012, Saudi passed KSA Royal Decree M/34 concerning the approval of the Law of Arbitration (KSA Arbitration Law) (together with its Implementing Rules) and in 2013, Royal Decree M/53 (Enforcement Law). The KSA Arbitration law is modelled on the UNCITRAL model law, which is regarded as international best practice.

The KSA Arbitration Law curtailed the Saudi courts’ interventionist powers in relation to arbitrations seated in Saudi Arabia by recognizing for the first time the parties’ autonomy to tailor their arbitration procedure in certain important respects, including by explicitly recognizing the adoption of institutional arbitration rules. The KSA Arbitration Law also addressed a key concern under the old law – the power of the Saudi courts to reopen and effectively re-litigate awards on their merits.

The Enforcement Law has led to the creation of specialized enforcement courts, whose jurisdiction supersedes that of the Board of Grievances (the court previously competent to hear requests for enforcement of arbitral awards). This in turn has started to have a salutary effect on the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, which until 2017 was an uncertain prospect. The Enforcement Law contains provisions that affect all aspects of enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards, both domestic and foreign. In practice, the Enforcement Law has resulted in the unprecedented enforcement of several foreign arbitral awards, which is welcome development. It is hoped that the Rules supplementing the KSA Arbitration Law will help to provide more certainty around how the courts will apply the KSA Arbitration Law, including with respect to enforcement of arbitral awards.

Domestic Arbitral Awards

Domestic arbitral awards must comply with the KSA Arbitration Law. The Enforcement Courts have jurisdiction to enforce domestic arbitral awards under article 9(2) of the Enforcement Law. For a domestic arbitral award, it must be declared as enforceable by the appeal court with initial jurisdiction over the dispute. Therefore, an application is needed to the relevant appeal court for a declaration that the award is enforceable by the party seeking enforcement. The declaration is normally represented by a court stamp, after which the request for enforcement can be registered with the Enforcement Court.

Domestic arbitral awards that are enforceable include:

  • monetary awards
  • specific performance
  • sale or delivery of tangible and intangible property

Article 55 of the KSA Arbitration Law outlines the procedural and substantive requirements of a valid arbitral award. Pursuant to this provision, the competent court must verify the following conditions to issue an order for enforcement:

  • The arbitral award must not contradict other court decisions or laws on the same subject in Saudi Arabia.
  • The loser has been duly notified of the arbitral award.
  • The arbitral award must not violate Saudi public policy (Sharia). My understanding is that where the Saudi Courts have been confronted with an award where part of it contradicts Sharia, in some instances, they have been willing to strike out the unenforceable part and enforce the remainder.

Furthermore, the arbitral award must comply with the formality requirements of the KSA Arbitration Law and be compliant with Sharia principles. Article 49 of the KSA Arbitration Law states that an arbitral award is not subject to appeal. However, under article 50(1), a party may apply to annul an arbitral award issued on the following grounds:

  • “if no arbitration agreement exists, or if such agreement is void, voidable, or terminated due to expiry of its term;
  • if either party, at the time of concluding the arbitration agreement, lacks legal capacity, pursuant to the law governing his capacity;
  • if either arbitration party fails to present his defence due to lack of proper notification of the appointment of an arbitrator or of the arbitration proceedings or for any other reason beyond his control;
  • if the arbitration award excludes the application of any rules which the parties to arbitration agree to apply to the subject matter of the dispute;
  • if the composition of the arbitration tribunal or the appointment of the arbitrators is carried out in a manner violating this Law or the agreement of the parties;
  • if the arbitration award rules on matters not included in the arbitration agreement; nevertheless, if parts of the award relating to matters subject to arbitration can be separated from those not subject there to, then nullification shall apply only to parts not subject to arbitration; and
  • If the arbitration tribunal fails to observe conditions required for the award in a manner affecting its substance, or if the award is based on void arbitration proceedings that affect it.”

Furthermore, under article 50(2) of the KSA Arbitration Law, the court may, on its own jurisdiction, nullify the arbitral award if:

  • it violates Sharia or Saudi public policy; or
  • the subject matter of the dispute was not arbitrable, e.g., not capable of being resolved by arbitration, under Saudi law.

The application for nullification of the arbitral award must be made 60 days after the nullifying party was notified of the award.

Foreign Arbitral Awards

Foreign awards must comply with the Enforcement Law as well as the New York Convention for enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. For a foreign arbitral award, a party does not need a declaration that it is enforceable from the relevant domestic appeal court. Instead, the party requesting enforcement can apply directly to the Enforcement Court, with no statute of limitations applicable.

For foreign arbitral awards to be enforceable they must meet the following criteria:

  • The award must be a final award and must not contradict another judgment or court order issued on the same subject in Saudi Arabia, or contradict the public policy of Saudi Arabia.
  • Reciprocity must be established between Saudi Arabia and the jurisdiction in which the award is issued. The burden on proving reciprocity is on the party requesting enforcement.
  • The award must have been issued by a tribunal with jurisdiction under the relevant foreign law, and the subject matter of the aware, should not be under mandatory jurisdiction of Saudi Arabia;
  • All parties must have conducted the proceedings with all procedural regularities in place, with due representation If the respondent to the proceedings was notified, but was not represented, and this can be evidenced, such an award is still enforceable.

The Enforcement Court has jurisdiction to enforce foreign arbitral awards in accordance with the requirements of the Enforcement Law:

  • Saudi courts must not have jurisdiction to decide the dispute.
  • The tribunal issuing the award must have had jurisdiction over the dispute.
  • The arbitral proceedings were conducted in accordance with due process, e.g., the parties had fair opportunities to present their cases.
  • The arbitral award is final and not subject to appeal under the law of the seat of arbitration.
  • The arbitral award must not contradict other court decisions or laws on the same subject in Saudi Arabia.
  • The arbitral award must not violate Saudi public policy.

The New York Convention is considered the foundation for enforcing arbitral awards in a state other than where the arbitral award was issued (i.e., foreign arbitral awards). All arbitral awards not issued under the KSA Arbitration Law are considered foreign arbitral awards. Contracting states to the New York Convention must recognise foreign arbitral awards as binding and enforce them under their rules of procedure, and without imposing “substantially more onerous conditions or higher fees or charges” for foreign arbitral awards than the State would impose on domestic arbitral awards.

Process for Enforcement of Arbitral Awards

To enforce an arbitration award the application for enforcement must include:

  • “the original award or an attested copy thereof;
  • a true copy of the arbitration agreement;
  • an Arabic translation of the arbitration award attested by an accredited authority, if the award is not issued in Arabic; and
  • a proof of the deposit of the award with the competent court, pursuant to article 44 of KSA Arbitration Law.”

Article 6 of the Enforcement Law addressing all judgments and awards, states that all judgments issued by an Enforcement Court are subject to appeal and the court of the KSA Arbitration Law appeal’s judgment would then be final. However, for arbitral awards issued under the KSA Arbitration Law, article 55(3) of the KSA Arbitration Law does not allow appeal of an order to enforce an arbitral award. By contrast, an order refusing enforcement is appealable.

The enforcement procedure is as follows:

  • An enforcement request is made through the Najiz application (the Ministry of Justice’s online portal) is made by the applicant.
  • The request is reviewed procedurally by the Enforcement Court, and is then referred to an enforcement judge. This will require up to three days.
  • If the enforcement judge is satisfied, an enforcement order will be issued (Article 34 decision), ordering one party to comply within five days of the notice.

The applicant must wait twenty days for the Enforcement Court to notify the relevant party of the Article 34 decision. If this is not done, the applicant may request for the notice to be served by publication in local press, by the Enforcement Court. Although the applicant will initially pay for the publication of the notice (three to five days are required for publication from payment), the costs are able to be reimbursed from the enforcement order.

If the Article 34 decision is not adhered to, within five days of notification, the enforcement judge may be requested to enforce sanctions against the non-complying party. Such measures, under Article 46 are issued up to ten days after the expiry of the Article 34 decision or from the date of applicant’s request to issue an Article 46 decision, provided that the request is made at least five days after the Article 34 decision is notified. All decisions by an enforcement judge are final, unless they relate to certain procedures or costs.

Other Considerations on Enforcing Arbitration Awards

The public policy exception to enforcing foreign arbitral awards has traditionally been very broad. An award that contradicts Sharia law or public policy will not be enforced by the Enforcement Court. However, if the part that contradicts public policy can be separated from the rest of the award, only that part should not be enforced.

The Enforcement Law sets out that the enforcement judge cannot enforce a foreign arbitral award if it includes what is contradictory to public policy. The implementing regulations of the Enforcement Law defines “public policy” as the Islamic Sharia. Saudi Arabia Royal Decree No. 44682/1443 dated 28 August 2021 limits the definition of public policy to general rules of Islamic law based on the Quran and the Sunnah. Recently successful grounds were:

  • Late payment charges were found to amount to usury.
  • Compensation for holding back money was found to amount to usury.
  • The award involved the sale of property which the purported seller did not own.

Public policy is not limited to procedural deficiencies. The Saudi court can, of its own volition, refuse to enforce an award that contradicts Sharia, including any of the evidence relied on by the tribunal that is not acceptable under Sharia (for example, if the tribunal relied on the testimony of a person with a mental impairment). The court could also refuse enforcement if the award itself contradicts Sharia (for example, an award of interest).

Other Enforcement Mechanisms

Saudi Arabia is also party to Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Co-operation and the GCC Agreement for the Enforcement of Judgments, Rogatory, and Judicial Publication.

One of the benefits of a more mature market is the presence of consultants, advisors and experts whom funders can rely on. How prevalent are such experts within the Saudi legal / litigation funding market?  What can funders do to ensure they are receiving reliable, actionable advice? 

Until recently, to participate in the Saudi market, international firms had to enter an alliance with a local partner firm. With the change of laws in this area, several international firms have now opened their own Saudi office, and HFW (the firm I work at) is one of those. This divergence perhaps causes some difficulty for clients seeking joined-up legal advice. Naturally, high quality Saudi firms focus on work in the local courts, where they have rights of audience. International firms are more likely to focus on international clients, working with contracts under foreign laws, with arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism. In both cases, the proliferation of work requires additional legal practitioners, and this growth potentially comes at the cost of quality legal advice or, at least, relevant experience.

Of course, it is tempting for me to say that HFW should be every funder’s first call for Saudi related advice! The reality, as everyone knows, is that every dispute is different and requires different skill sets, sector knowledge, legal qualification(s), and price point. I’m sure it doesn’t really need to be said, as legal funders know their jobs better than I do, but I would always suggest seeking advice from firms and individuals who have wide experience in the jurisdiction, have advised on disputes in the relevant sector in that jurisdiction previously, and understand what legal funders need and want to be able to make their investment decision.

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

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LFJ Conversation

An LFJ Conversation with Jason Levine, Partner at Foley & Lardner LLP

By John Freund |

Jason Levine is an antitrust and commercial litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner LLP.  He previously served as the D.C. office head, and head of U.S. antitrust strategy, at Omni Bridgeway, a global commercial litigation finance company.

Jason’s legal background spans over 25 years in private practice as a first-chair trial lawyer and antitrust litigator in several multinational law firms.  He has tried over a dozen cases and served as lead counsel for plaintiffs and defendants in numerous billion-dollar disputes, including defending against two of the nation’s largest antitrust MDLs.  Jason graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and clerked for Judge Randall Rader on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Below is our LFJ conversation with Jason Levine:

Where does litigation finance add the most value in antitrust cases, particularly given their scale, duration, and cost profile? 

As in any complex dispute, litigation finance adds significant value in antitrust cases by shifting the risk of fees and legal costs away from the plaintiff or the law firm and to a funder.  Antitrust cases are particularly well-suited to litigation finance because they can be exceptionally costly, require specialized counsel and often multiple expert witnesses, tend to have a long duration, and can involve massive amounts of discovery.

The aspects of the case where a financing arrangement adds the most value will vary depending on the funding mechanism.  If a law firm is handling a matter on a contingent fee basis, then the greatest value from financing typically comes from covering the legal costs the firm would otherwise advance on its own.  Outside a contingent fee scenario, financing is most important in paying counsel’s legal fees, although the funder may also cover legal costs.  The universal point is that, for companies pursuing antitrust litigation, financing can be very attractive because it is non-recourse, permits the company to reserve its legal budget for defensive and compliance matters that are not amenable to financing, and helps convert the legal function from a proverbial “cost center” into a revenue generator.

Funding also increases the client’s options for which counsel to retain, which is particularly important in antitrust cases given their nature.  With outside financing covering legal fees and costs, the client can focus more on the expertise and “fit” of counsel than on their billing rates.  Relatedly, litigation finance can enable a small company to hire a “Big Law” firm that doesn’t offer contingent fee arrangements, rather than potentially being limited to a firm that does.  The same point applies to expert witnesses, making the top echelon available whereas they might otherwise have been prohibitively expensive.

In short, with a meritorious case and litigation financing behind it, a small corporate plaintiff can match a much larger defendant’s litigation resources.  This benefit of leveling the playing field is very clear in antitrust cases, given their scope and cost to litigate, which helps explain why they are funded at a higher rate than most other categories of commercial litigation.

Are there specific types of antitrust claims or procedural postures where you think funding is especially well suited?

Funding is very well suited to antitrust claims where a company has opted out of a class action and is pursuing its claim independently.  This is particularly true if the opt-out occurs after the putative class action has survived motions to dismiss, if not class certification.  At either point, a funder will consider the opt-out case at least partly de-risked.

This benefits the funder because the case is less risky and will have a shorter remaining duration.  It benefits the funding counterparty because the funder’s required return should be lower, given the de-risking, leaving more of the proceeds for the client and the law firm to share.  Substantively, funding is well suited to various kinds of antitrust cases, so long as quantifiable money damages are at stake rather than solely injunctive relief.

What regulatory or legislative developments in litigation finance should antitrust litigators be paying closest attention to right now?

There is significant activity at both the federal and state level that warrants attention, although not specific to antitrust cases.  At the federal level, bills have been proposed that would seek to compel detailed disclosures of the existence and details of litigation financing arrangements, including to the adverse parties.  Another bill would seek to largely shut down the involvement of foreign entities in litigation finance, both by prohibiting the practice by certain state-affiliated actors and also by requiring extremely detailed disclosures by others.

Although it’s fair to say that none of these proposals are a very high legislative priority, they definitely warrant attention, given how far the proposed federal tax on litigation finance proceeds progressed in 2025.  That tax has not been formally re-introduced yet, but that is another possibility that would merit watching.

As the midterm elections in 2026 draw closer, the prospects for movement on any of these proposals will likely decrease, with the exception of a possible “midnight rider” slipped into a year-end Appropriations bill.  That’s something else to watch out for.  In addition, the Advisory Committee on the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is considering potential Rule amendments involving disclosure of litigation funding uniformly in federal cases, and this is worth monitoring as well.  Given all these developments, defendants have an increased incentive to seek information about litigation funding arrangements through discovery requests.

At the state level, at least a dozen states are perennially considering different disclosure regimes and regulations that would complicate the use of litigation finance.  Some of this is performative, having failed multiple years in a row in some states.  I would keep a particularly close watch for state-specific versions of the litigation finance tax that failed to pass in the U.S. Senate last year, especially in California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Illinois.

How do you expect evolving disclosure or taxation proposals to affect big firm strategy in funded matters?

Certainly, large law firms that are considering funding arrangements, or that have them already, will be monitoring the regulatory landscape for important developments.  I would anticipate that the imposition of new regulations in general will cause firms to focus closely on compliance, both on their part as either funded counterparties or as counsel to them, and also on the part of funders.  This might lead to a tendency to favor larger, more established funders that have robust internal compliance capabilities.

Law firms and their funded corporate clients will also likely scrutinize funding agreements even more carefully.  Similarly, if any new industry-specific taxes are enacted, law firms will likely focus on funders’ ability to adapt their return structures to minimize the passed-through impact.  Pricing in line with the market is always important, but potential tax changes could highlight this even more.  Greater regulation could also lead to further consolidation in the litigation finance industry, leaving fewer – but likely larger – companies in the space, making it all the more important for law firms to seek out whatever edge a particular funder can provide in a deal.

I would not expect any new disclosure or taxation regimes to change the way law firms actually litigate their cases, with the exception of disclosure requirements giving rise to more discovery efforts aimed at funding arrangements.  It is possible that a new, aggressive disclosure regime could give certain companies pause about pursuing funding, but I also consider this unlikely to change law firm litigation strategy.

Based on your own transition, what advice would you give Big Law partners or senior associates considering a move into litigation finance or a finance adjacent role?

I would advise them to be patient and to focus on relationships.  Litigation finance companies do not have a classic recruiting pattern like law firms do.  Headcounts tend to remain steady, with opportunistic hiring for purposes of expansion or replacement of departing personnel.  I know several people whose transitions from a law firm into litigation finance took over a year because there simply weren’t openings available.  In that situation, it’s important make contacts at one or more companies and check in with them periodically, because expressing interest in a position and staying top of mind can make all the difference.  A warm internal introduction is much more valuable than cold outreach.

I would also recommend gaining direct exposure to litigation finance before seeking out a position.  Funders will favor partners and associates who have previously handled funded litigation or at least negotiated deal terms with a funder.  This not only credentializes the job-seeker’s interest in a role, it also demonstrates some familiarity with the industry and how it operates.  Relatedly, job-seekers should learn as much as they can about the funder as possible before approaching it.  What kinds of cases does it fund?  Does it have geographical limits, or funding amounts that it favors?  This information is often on the company’s website, and knowing it shows diligence and also helps ensure fit.  For the few publicly traded funders, I strongly recommend reviewing investor materials and annual reports before interviewing.

In addition, particularly for partners, I would emphasize the importance of objectively assessing one’s network and prospects for helping to generate deal flow.  Similar to a law firm, at most funders, origination is a key aspect of a more senior role.  What is your base of potential funding clients?  Do you have strong contacts with litigation business generators at multiple law firms, or with well-placed in-house counsel at companies with suitable litigation?  Are your contacts limited to particular kinds of litigation, and if so, are those ones that tend to receive funding?

These are important questions to answer as granularly as possible before approaching a funder for a job.  For more junior lawyers, consider where you would fit in the funder’s structure, and how you can add value, particularly in the nuts and bolts of underwriting cases.  Here, again, subject matter is important.  Expertise in areas of law that don’t yield funded cases is unlikely to support the business care for a new hire.

LFJ Conversation

An LFJ Conversation with Thomas Bell, Founder of Fenaro

By John Freund |

Thomas is the Founder of Fenaro, a modern fund management platform for litigation finance. He holds a law degree from Durham University and has spent his career designing and delivering large-scale, complex financial services platforms. Prior to founding Coremaker's Fenaro product, he spent much of his career at Accenture, PwC, and other management consulting firms, working with global banks, asset managers, and institutional investors.

Below is our LFJ Conversation with Thomas Bell:

The litigation finance industry has grown to over $16 billion, yet your blog notes that many firms still run on spreadsheets. What specific operational pain points do fund managers face with legacy systems, and how does Fenaro address them? 

Despite the industry’s rapid growth, most litigation funders continue to rely on in-house spreadsheets or fragmented systems that are not designed to handle litigation finance. From our conversations with funders across the market, three operational pain points consistently arise.

The first is calculation risk. Funders regularly tell us about issues arising from manual models and fragile data infrastructure, ranging from investor reports needing to be reissued due to errors (surprisingly common), to material budget discrepancies only being identified late in a case lifecycle (less common, but in some cases career-ending). Purpose-built fund management systems substantially reduce this risk by centralising data and automating complex calculations.

The second is friction with law firms after a deal has closed. One funder summarised their biggest challenge as “getting lawyers to think in IRR terms.” In practice, this reflects the lack of efficient processes for tracking budgets, agreeing drawdowns, reviewing invoices, and sharing case updates. Fenaro addresses this through the borrower portal, which provides law firms with a structured and transparent way to work with funders throughout the life of an investment, resulting in a much more positive relationship.

The third is operational complexity limiting scale. Many funders speak candidly about ambitious growth plans being constrained by manual reporting, bespoke processes, and operational bottlenecks. Without greater standardisation and automation, it is difficult to scale portfolios or support increased institutional participation. Fenaro is built from the ground up to reduce the overhead of operational processes, while giving funders all the key information required to focus on growing and managing the fund.

Mass tort portfolios can involve thousands of individual claims with constantly shifting data. How does your platform help funders track, value, and report on these complex portfolios without drowning in manual updates? 

In mass tort strategies, some funders are managing regular updates across tens or even hundreds of thousands of individual claims and many different law firms. Several have told us that keeping this information accurate and up to date is a data nightmare that quickly becomes unmanageable, and worry they’re spending too much time on administrative data-wrangling efforts, and not enough time on actually mining the content for value.

Fenaro is designed to process high volumes of case data from multiple law firms in a consistent format. Updates can be submitted through borrower portals or uploaded directly, allowing funders to see the status, valuation, and history of every claim at a glance. As part of this process, the platform runs validation checks and identifies potential duplicate claimants, a serious and well-known issue in mass tort funding. The same validated data is then used to produce investor and internal reports without the need for manual reconciliation.

You've written about the challenges funders face when lending to law firms—particularly around monitoring how capital is deployed. What visibility does Fenaro provide, and how does that change the funder-firm relationship? 

We frequently hear that fund visibility tends to drop sharply after capital is deployed. Monitoring budgets, drawdowns, and expenditure often relies on periodic reporting and manual review.

Fenaro provides funders with continuous visibility at both the portfolio and case level. At the same time, Fenaro gives law firms access to a free borrower portal. Contrary to the perception that firms resist new technology, many lawyers have told us directly that they are willing to adopt tools that reduce administrative burden and improve clarity. The borrower portal allows firms to track funding, compare spend against budgets, submit updates, and request additional capital, reducing friction on both sides and improving the overall relationship.

You've recently launched complex waterfall and scenario modelling functionality. Can you walk us through a use case—how would a fund manager use this feature when evaluating a potential investment or communicating with LPs about projected returns? 

Funders often tell us that building and maintaining waterfall models in spreadsheets is one of the most time-consuming and error-prone parts of the investment process. Fenaro allows complex waterfalls to be configured in seconds, with multi-step logic based on capital return, interest, IRR, MOIC and other calculation types.

A flow view presents the waterfall logic in plain English, and scenario-modelling functionality allows users to test scenarios and explain outcomes to investment committees and LPs. Once a deal is live, waterfalls update automatically as cashflows occur, removing the need for repeated spreadsheet rework and reducing calculation risk.

Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for technology to transform how litigation finance firms operate? Are there capabilities that funders are asking for that don't exist yet?

Many funders we speak to see the biggest opportunities in greater standardisation, which would help unlock institutional capital and support a more liquid secondary market. There is still significant friction in how funders, law firms, investors, insurers, and brokers interact, and we’re tackling this one step at a time, focusing on the most pressing pain points first.

We are also frequently asked about AI and machine learning. Our view is that near-term value lies in decision support rather than decision replacement—particularly in reducing the time spent evaluating the majority of cases that are ultimately declined, while equipping underwriters with better information to make faster, more confident decisions. It will likely be some time before the technology is sufficient to take underwriting decisions on behalf of the funder, given the complexity and variation of the underlying legal cases, but things are moving quickly in the AI space so we continue to test and review various models as they evolve.

LFJ Conversation

An LFJ Conversation with Rory Kingan, CEO of Eperoto

By John Freund |

Rory is the CEO of Eperoto, championing the use of decision analysis to improve clarity around litigation and arbitration risk. Originally from New Zealand, he's worked within legal technology for decades, delivering innovative solutions to the top global firms, government, as well as specialist legal boutiques.

Below is our LFJ Conversation with Rory Kingan:

Eperoto’s approach emphasizes using lawyer judgment rather than AI or data-driven models. Why is that distinction important, and how does it build trust among lawyers, funders, and other stakeholders?

At Eperoto, we believe that lawyer judgement is the foundation of credible litigation and arbitration analysis. High-stakes disputes aren’t like consumer tech problems where large-scale historical data exists and small inaccuracies are insignificant. They're unique, context-dependent situations where experience and nuanced legal reasoning are irreplaceable. In most commercial cases, AI simply doesn’t have the training data or contextual nuance to make defensible predictions. Right now it also struggles with the complexity of jurisdictional variation and the role of precedent. No funder or sophisticated client should rely on a generic model to value a multi-million-dollar dispute.

Litigation and arbitration are inherently grey-zones. Outcomes turn not only on points of law, but also on credibility assessments, witness performance, tribunal psychology, and how fact narratives are perceived. These are areas where AI is weak and where judges and experts routinely disagree. Research across behavioural psychology and negotiation theory shows that human reasoning is still essential in these environments. Lawyers will often use an AI tool as a sounding board to explore different ideas and arguments, but ultimately they rely on their own judgement and reasoning to assess how different elements of the case are likely to unfold.

Eperoto is therefore built around a simple principle: Lawyers make the judgement; the platform helps them to structure and quantify it.

This distinction builds trust for three reasons:

  1. It reflects how top practitioners already work. Clients retain leading counsel for their experience, intuition, and ability to form a reasoned opinion, not for machine-generated answers.
  2. It avoids “false precision.” AI-driven confidence levels often create a misleading impression of certainty. Eperoto keeps the human experts in control.
  3. It aligns with stakeholders’ expectations. Funders, insurers, GCs, CFOs and boards want a lawyer’s professional assessment, but expressed in a structured, decision-analytic way. Eperoto strengthens, rather than replaces, that judgment.

The result is a decision-analysis workflow that is transparent, explainable, and fully grounded in legal expertise. Precisely what stakeholders need to trust the numbers behind a funding or settlement decision.

When litigation funders assess potential cases, they often rely on intuition and experience. How does Eperoto help them quantify risk and likely outcomes in a way that strengthens those investment decisions?

Every litigation funder knows that a case is a contingent asset, and valuing that asset depends on understanding the likelihood of outcomes at trial or arbitration. Yet the process used to reach those views is usually unstructured, highly subjective, and difficult to defend when presented to an investment committee or external partner.

Eperoto addresses this by helping lawyers to apply decision-tree analysis. This is a method used for decades in energy, pharma, finance, and indeed litigation. Instead of relying purely on intuition, lawyers:

  1. Map the key uncertainties. What issues drive liability? Likely quantum outcomes? How might damages be reduced? Where do procedural or evidentiary risks sit?
  2. Assign probabilities grounded in legal judgment. No AI predictions: purely the lawyers’ professional view expressed clearly rather than implied.
  3. Estimate costs & cost-shifting, interest, and any enforcement risk.

From this the tool calculates a visual quantitative risk report, showing funders the likely outcomes, expected value, downside scenarios, tail risk, and more.

This sort of analysis:

  • makes an investment case more rigorous,
  • dramatically improves internal and external defensibility, and
  • surfaces insights impossible to see from narrative memos alone.

Funders, insurers, and counsel repeatedly tell us that this level of clarity is transformative. It sharpens decisionmaking, strengthens underwriting discipline, and improves alignment across stakeholders. Over time, a consistent, structured approach creates a more disciplined portfolio and generates a feedback loop that measurably improves investment decisions.

Clearer communication of risk and value benefits all stakeholders. What are the biggest barriers to achieving that clarity in practice?

The biggest barrier is language ambiguity. A typical merits opinion reads something like:

“It's most likely the defendant will be found liable for X, with only an outside chance the court will accept the argument Y. Damages could be as high as Z.”

Terms such as “very likely,” “little chance,” or “low risk” are interpreted wildly differently by different people, even among seasoned professionals. Research consistently shows a huge disparity in how people interpret such terms. For example "unlikely" can be interpreted as meaning anywhere from below 10% to over 40% likely to occur. Your investment decisions shouldn’t be subject to this margin of error just from internal communications.

A second barrier is complexity overload. Lawyers often present lengthy written analyses where different legal issues are explained sequentially:

“X might happen, but if not then Y. In that case Z will determine…”

Decision-makers are left to combine all these uncertainties mentally, plus litigation costs, insurance, interest, enforcement risks, appeal probabilities, and timing assumptions. Even highly experienced professionals can't intuitively do this correctly.

Eperoto solves these issues in three ways:

a) It forces clarity through quantification. “80% likelihood the contract is valid” is unambiguous, whereas “very likely” may be understood as 65% by one person and 95% by another.

b) It combines the factors automatically. No one needs to mentally integrate legal issues, damages pathways, costs, or conditional dependencies.

c) It presents the analysis visually. Charts and diagrams let stakeholders see the shape of the dispute, rather than reading dense text.

Together these remove unnecessary complexity, leaving stakeholders to focus on the true strategic questions rather than being stuck in ambiguous details.

Many lawyers hesitate to provide quantitative estimates because they fear being “wrong.” How do you encourage practitioners to engage with uncertainty in a more structured, transparent way?

This is a common concern, but it fundamentally misunderstands what quantification achieves. Providing estimates numerically doesn't remove uncertainty, it communicates it transparently. The alternative isn't "not being wrong"; it's being vague, which is far worse for the client or investor.

Sophisticated clients, funders, and boards understand that litigation outcomes are uncertain. What they want is clarity, not perfection. Yes, you should still make clear that a percentage estimate is not a promise; it is a transparent reflection of professional judgement, less ambiguous than vague adjectives. But once everyone accepts that, it allows for greater clarity and indeed honesty.

We encourage lawyers to adopt a mindset similar to experts in other industries:

  • Quantification is not about being right; it’s about making uncertainty explicit.
  • A structured model allows you to compare multiple scenarios, e.g. optimistic vs pessimistic or comparing different counsel’s assessments.
  • Visual decision-trees help practitioners and clients see how different issues interact without needing to commit to one “correct” narrative.

Lawyers often find that once they begin using numeric estimates and decision trees, discussions with clients become easier, expectations align more quickly, and advice becomes more defensible. Many even rely on the visual component alone when presenting paths, strategy, and what truly drives the dispute.

How can tools like Eperoto help bridge the gap between legal reasoning and financial analysis, bringing dispute resolution closer to the standards of decision-making seen in other business contexts?

Business-critical decisions in energy, pharmaceuticals, and corporate strategy have used quantitative decision analysis for decades. A pharmaceutical company wouldn't greenlight a $50M clinical trial based on phrases like "good chance of success" or "strong scientific rationale". They'd model probabilities, conditional outcomes, and expected value. Yet litigation decisions involving similar amounts often rely on purely that kind of qualitative language.

The gap isn't from a lack of judgment. It's that legal reasoning and financial decision-making speak different languages. Lawyers think in terms of arguments, precedents, and likelihoods. Funders think in terms of expected values, downside risk, and portfolio returns. Eperoto translates between these worlds.

Here's a concrete example: A law firm presents a case with "strong liability prospects" and "substantial damages potential." The investment committee sees an attractive headline but struggles to assess the risk. Using Eperoto, counsel maps the decision tree and reveals that while liability looks good at 70%, the real value driver is a secondary issue: whether a contractual damages cap applies. If the cap doesn't apply, a 40% likelihood, it would triple the recovery. The investment thesis becomes clear: this isn't a simple 70% bet on liability; it's a case where the upside scenario creates most of the expected value. That fundamentally changes how you price the funding, structure the terms, and think about settlement strategy.

This kind of insight can easily be buried in a narrative memo but obvious when properly structured.

Specifically, Eperoto enables:

1. A common analytical framework - When counsel says "we have a strong case but quantum is uncertain," Eperoto forces that assessment into a structure funders recognize: probability-weighted scenarios with costs, timing, and enforcement risk factored in. This isn't dumbing down legal analysis; it's making it actionable.

2. Proper treatment of uncertainty - In portfolio management, no one expects point estimates: they expect distributions, scenarios, and sensitivity analysis. Eperoto brings that same rigor to litigation assets, showing not just expected value but the shape of the risk distribution. What's the 10th percentile outcome? How sensitive is the return to different assumptions? This is standard practice in all other asset classes.

3. Defensible investment decisions - Just as a PE firm documents the assumptions behind an acquisition, funding decisions should have the same analytical discipline. Eperoto creates an audit trail showing why a deal was approved or a settlement accepted, based on structured analysis rather than gut feel. Critical for investment committee scrutiny and stakeholder confidence.

4. Portfolio-level insights over time - Applying decision analysis consistently across a portfolio creates compounding benefits. Funders develop better calibration of their judgment, identify patterns of cases that outperform or underperform expectations, and build institutional knowledge about what drives value. Over time, this disciplined approach strengthens underwriting quality and improves portfolio returns. Just like how data-driven decision-making in other industries creates feedback loops that enhance performance.

The result is that litigation funding can be managed with the same analytical rigor as any other alternative asset class. Lawyers retain their essential role as expert judgment-makers, but that judgment gets expressed in a framework that investment committees can understand, stress-test, and defend to stakeholders.