ILR Chair: “If Litigation Finance is Such a Good Thing, Why the Secrecy?”

In an op-ed for Bloomberg Law, U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform Chairman and former general counsel of General Electric Brackett Denniston said there is “no good reason” to keep third party litigation funding (TPLF) “secret and shielded from scrutiny.”

Denniston challenged the assertion from third party funders that their work should be kept from the public eye. TPLF disclosure, he said, would equate to a defendant releasing insurance policies at the start of litigation. Doing so allows both sides of a dispute operate on equal footing, so, as the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules said in 1970, “settlement and litigation strategy are based on knowledge and not speculation.” A “uniform national rule” requiring TPLF disclosure would do the same thing, he said.

Wisconsin’s first-in-the-nation disclosure law, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules’ consideration of a federal rule, and the Litigation Funding Transparency Act before the U.S. Senate are all signs of a “growing call for disclosure,” Denniston said.