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Member Spotlight: Wendie Childress

Wendie Childress is an experienced commercial trial lawyer and litigation funder with an extensive and deep network across the U.S. legal and funding market. She joined Westfleet Advisors in 2023 after years of working with funding pioneers at Validity Finance and well over a decade of practicing commercial litigation at powerhouse boutique Yetter Coleman, one of the nation’s premier boutique trial law firms.

In her private practice, Wendie had a winning track record representing both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial disputes across a variety of industries, including energy, financial services, healthcare, and IT. She graduated with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her JD in 2000. She then served for two years as General Counsel to the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce.

Wendie has been named to the Lawdragon “Global 100 Leaders in Litigation Finance” list and a “Houston Top Lawyer” in Business & Commercial Litigation by H Texas Magazine. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas, Texas Bar Foundation, Houston Bar Association, and Women of Litigation Finance Steering Committee.

Company Name and Description:  Westfleet Advisors is the most experienced litigation finance advisory firm in the world. Our core mission is to make litigation finance work better for lawyers and their clients by equipping them with the transparency, expertise, and resources they need to secure the best terms with the right capital partner.

Company Website:  https://www.westfleetadvisors.com/

Year Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Nashville

Area of Focus: As Managing Director and Counsel in the Westfleet Advisors Houston office, Wendie works directly with clients and their counsel in evaluating opportunities for litigation finance transactions and advising and shepherding them through all stages of the process to ensure that they get the best possible experience and terms.

Member Quote: “As a former trial lawyer and member of the litigation funding community, I have seen firsthand the need for balanced access to justice for all litigants and how funding presents an innovative and valuable way to mitigate risk and bring good cases to trial. I am so impressed with the quality of counsel and professionals within the litigation funding industry who are a pleasure to work with and eager to partner with firms and help clients succeed. I also see sweeping changes across the industry as it matures and evolves with intra-market movement, new entrants appearing daily, and new and creative solutions being derived to meet the market’s changing needs. As a member of the Westfleet team, my goal is to help clients and their counsel navigate this dynamic industry to have successful outcomes with their funding experience and ultimately, their cases.”

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Palisade, Accredited Specialty Secure $35 Million Legal Risk Cover

By John Freund |

Specialty managing general underwriter Palisade Insurance Partners has taken a significant step to scale its fast-growing contingent-legal-risk book, striking a delegated-authority agreement with Accredited Specialty Insurance Company. Including the Accredited capacity, Palisade has up to $35 million in coverage for legal risk insurance products. The New York-headquartered MGU can now offer larger wraps for judgment preservation, adverse-appeal and similar exposures—coverages that corporates, private-equity sponsors and law firms increasingly use to de-risk litigation and unlock financing.

An article in Business Insurance reports that the deal provides Palisade's clients with the comfort of carrier balance-sheet strength while allowing the insurer to expand its program portfolio. The capacity tops up Palisade’s existing relationships and arrives at a time when several traditional markets have retrenched from contingent legal risk after absorbing a spate of outsized verdicts, leaving many complex disputes under-served.

Palisade leadership said demand for robust limits has “never been stronger,” driven by M&A transactions that hinge on successful appeals, fund-level financings that need portfolio hedges, and secondary trading of mature judgments. Writing on LinkedIn, Palisade President John McNally stated: "Accredited's partnership expands Palisade's ability to transfer litigation exposures and help facilitate transactional and financing outcomes for its corporate, law firm, investment manager and M&A clients."

The new facility aligns the MGU’s maximum line with those of higher-profile peers and could see Palisade participate in single-event placements that have historically defaulted to the London market. For Accredited, the move diversifies its program roster and positions the insurer to capture premium in a niche with attractive economics—provided underwriting discipline holds.

Omni Bridgeway Maps Recovery Paths for PRC Creditors

By John Freund |

China’s ballooning stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) has long frustrated mainland banks and asset-management companies eager to claw back value from defaulted borrowers scattered across multiple jurisdictions. In its newly released 2025 Report on International Asset Recovery for PRC Financial Creditors, Omni Bridgeway distills the lessons of a growing body of cross-border enforcement actions and sets out a playbook for creditors determined to follow the money.

A paper published by Omni Bridgeway explains that the three-chapter study surveys today’s enforcement landscape, highlights “funded recovery” strategies for domestic institutions, and walks readers through case studies in which Chinese lenders have traced assets into offshore havens and employed Mareva-style injunctions, arbitral award assignments, and insolvency proceedings to compel payment.

The paper highlights how litigation finance can transform the economics of pursuing stubborn debtors. By underwriting investigative costs, securing local counsel, and bridging timing gaps between enforcement wins and cash realisation, funders such as Omni Bridgeway can turn an otherwise write-off-prone claim into a profitable workout.

The report also charts structural shifts reshaping the market: Beijing’s pressure on state banks to clean balance sheets, private-equity appetite for “special situations” paper, and widening acceptance of third-party funding in arbitration hubs from Hong Kong to Singapore. A series of recent matters—ranging from a Guangzhou lender’s successful freeze of UK real estate to a provincial AMC’s recovery of Latin-American mining assets—illustrate the potency of coordinated tracing, injunctive relief, and securitised claims sales.

For the legal-funding bar, the study underscores a powerful, still-underexploited pipeline: hundreds of billions of renminbi in distressed credit looking for capital-efficient enforcement solutions. Whether PRC banks will embrace external funders at scale—and how regulators will view foreign-backed recovery campaigns—remain pivotal questions for 2025 and beyond.

Omni Bridgeway Hails U.S. Budget Bill Win

By John Freund |

Omni Bridgeway has sidestepped a potentially painful tax after President Trump signed the FY-25 Budget Bill without the much-debated levy on legal-finance proceeds. The Australian-listed funder, which bankrolls commercial claims on six continents, had warned that the original 40.8 percent surcharge floated in the Senate Finance Committee would depress case economics and chill cross-border capital flows. Instead, the final bill landed on 4 July with zero mention of legal-finance taxation, handing the industry a regulatory reprieve just as U.S. portfolio commitments hit record highs.

Sharecafe notes that Omni Bridgeway credits a rare coalition of plaintiff-side bar groups, access-to-justice NGOs, and chambers-of-commerce allies for persuading lawmakers to drop the proposal. The company says it will elaborate in its 4Q25 report later this month, but stresses that bipartisan recognition of funding’s public-interest role now mirrors supportive reviews in Australia, the EU and the UK.

For funders, the episode underscores two diverging trends: rising U.S. political scrutiny and an equally vocal defense of the asset class from sophisticated investors. Expect lobbying budgets to climb as Congress circles disclosure and tax issues again in 2026, but also expect money to keep flowing—Omni’s stance suggests confidence that regulatory headwinds can be managed without derailing growth.