Law, disrupted
Law, disrupted is a podcast that dives into the legal issues emerging from cutting-edge and innovative subjects such as SPACs, NFTs, litigation finance, ransomware, streaming, and much, much more! Your host is John B. Quinn, founder and chairman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, a 900+ attorney business litigation firm with 29 offices around the globe, each devoted solely to business litigation. John is regarded as one of the top trial lawyers in the world, who, along with his partners, has built an institution that has consistently been listed among the “Most Feared” litigation firms in the world (BTI Consulting Group), and was called a “global litigation powerhouse” by The Wall Street Journal. In his podcast, John is joined by industry professionals as they examine and debate legal issues concerning the newest technologies, innovations, and current events—and ask what’s next?
Law, disrupted
The Evolution of Legal Assets as an Investment Class
John Quinn is joined by Jack Neumark, Managing Partner and Co-Head of Specialty Finance of Fortress Investment Group and founder of its Legal Assets Group. They discuss the emergence of legal assets as a distinct investment class. Fortress is a leading player in litigation finance with over $6.5 billion deployed in legal assets and a current portfolio of approximately $3 billion. While most litigation funders typically invest in individual cases, Fortress invests in diversified portfolios of litigation claims and contingent fee receivables. Fortress underwrites and finances these portfolios the same way it does other specialty finance products. To underwrite a portfolio, Fortress has lawyers examine the cases in the portfolio to determine how strong and likely to settle they are. They consider factors including the defendants and how creditworthy they are, the damage theories asserted, how far the case has progressed, what motion practice has revealed, and whether related criminal charges have been filed. They also consider the law firms involved, the judge, and the venue. Fortress also conducts quantitative analyses of the historical results of similar cases based on publicly available data and proprietary data it has accumulated in the 15 years it has invested in legal assets. Legal asset portfolios are attractive to many investors because the results of lawsuits are less subject to the performance of the economy in general than many other classes of assets. Also, because the market for legal assets is still developing, sophisticated investors can often obtain better returns than in more mature markets. Jack believes that as the industry matures, especially with potential regulatory changes around law firm ownership, litigation finance will become more mainstream and integrated into broader investment strategies.
Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm
Host: John B. Quinn
Producer: Alexis Hyde
Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi
