LexShares Case #357: The Favorable View A small pharmaceutical company spent eleven years suing a Fortune 50 drugmaker over a broken license agreement. Every fact I checked before investing turned out to be true. Three arbitrators rejected the claim anyway, and there is nobody to appeal to. The Numbers Invested $75,000 Returned $0 Net Loss […]
Eighteen Thousand a Head: When the Book Build Is the Asset The Commonwealth agreed to pay A$18,000 for every eligible claimant who registered in the Northern Territory stolen wages class action, so the size of the settlement was set by the outreach program rather than by the case. The funder earned A$3,600 on each person […]
The Residual Claimant: Two Settlements and the Layer That Doesn’t Shrink Google will pay £260 million to settle a UK class action and £160 million of that reaches the class. An Australian court approved a A$22.5 million settlement the same week and A$5.12 million reached the group members. The gap between 62% and 23% is […]
The Defense Side Buys In: A $700M Bet on More Litigation Charlesbank is close to paying roughly $700 million for a management services stake in a 500-lawyer insurance defense firm — the largest private equity investment in an American law firm yet attempted. The pitch the firm made to buyers is that private equity and […]
Assetless by Design: When a Funder’s Security Becomes the Claimant’s Problem A patent claimant pledged its patents, its licenses and every dollar those patents might ever earn to the funder paying for the case. The Unified Patent Court read the pledge, called the company “basically assetless in an economical sense,” and ordered it to produce […]
The Money That Can’t Move: Three Claims on One Client Account A court awarded £42.7 million of costs to the claimants in the Mariana dam litigation, and the money landed in their law firm’s client account. A Brazilian funder says it should have gone straight into an account securing its loan. The firm says the […]
The Debt Didn’t Move: Burford’s Leverage After YPF Between December and June, Burford’s borrowings rose 13% and its leverage ratio nearly quadrupled, from 0.9x tangible book to 3.5x. Almost none of that came from borrowing. The denominator collapsed, because a court reversed a judgment and $2.4 billion of carrying value went with it. In the […]
The Premium That Bought Nothing: When ATE Insurance Doesn’t Pay £19.5M of after-the-event premiums bought policies that never paid out on a single claim, and the funder whose money paid for them is now suing the insurer to get them back. In the same month, seven claimants learned that their £16.2M of the same cover […]
The Patent Platform Turn: How Families Beat Single Cases Funders moved from single patents to families and licensing campaigns, and the strategy is genuinely better than what I bought as a retail investor. But the thing that actually repriced patent assets over the last eighteen months wasn’t strategy at all. It was a screen at […]
The VC Myth, Debunked: Why Patent Funders Aren’t VCs A defence firm says patent funders bankroll junk in the hope one case pays for everything. A funder’s general counsel says the arithmetic makes that impossible. I rebuilt his model and it reconciles to the dollar — so he wins. Then I read what he deliberately […]
The Verdict That Vanished: Inside the “Take Care of Maya” Funding Fight A $213M verdict became a $42M loan and a $60M insurance policy. Then an appeals court erased the judgment and sent the case back for a smaller retrial — the one outcome that breaks the economics while triggering none of the protection. Florida’s […]
The Template Behind the Ban: Tracing HB 105 to Its Source Most of the state litigation-funding bills in this wave descend from one model act adopted by insurance-committee legislators in November 2024. Lay the template beside the statutes and something odd shows up: the document is called a Transparency Act, and transparency is the part […]
The Ban That Wasn’t: Ohio’s New Litigation-Funding Law Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed HB 105 in July and the coverage called it a foreign-funder ban. It isn’t one. It’s a licensing regime for the whole industry with a single real prohibition attached — and that prohibition, a look-through test on where a fund’s capital came […]
The Coupon That Couldn’t Wait: Woodville and the Fixed-Date Trap A UK litigation funder just collapsed with a £249M loan book, 300,000 claims, and about ten employees. It didn’t lose the cases — the cases haven’t finished. It promised investors fixed quarterly interest and fixed repayment dates on an asset that pays whenever a court […]
The Prohibition Model: North Carolina Bans Litigation Funding North Carolina became the first US state to outlaw third-party litigation funding outright — not disclosure, not a cap, a flat prohibition with $50,000 penalties and treble damages. It passed the House unanimously and the Senate 45-1, which is a strange result for a contested policy fight […]
LexShares Case #254: The Sovereign Mirage A Turkish contractor built $1.5 billion in infrastructure for a Central Asian state. Then the government stopped paying. Two international arbitrations and nine years later — nothing. The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $0 Net Loss ($50,000) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 3,270 days The Case A Turkish construction […]
The Litigation Grind: 42 Cases, 7 Years, 1.25% IRR An eight-member investor group put $2.3M into 42 commercial lawsuits on a retail platform and came out roughly where it started. The win rate was survivable; what the wins paid was not. The platform priced just under the funders who had already turned these cases down, […]
LexShares Case #644: The Passport Patent Payday An inventor’s RFID technology ended up in every US electronic passport. After 9 years of litigation, the government finally paid. The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $45,897 Net Profit $20,897 MOIC 1.84x IRR 9.43% Holding Period 2,458 days The Case In the mid-2000s, an inventor developed technology for securely […]
How “Senior Secured” Became Subordinated Scraps A $15M “senior secured” loan to a class action law firm — how I lost $87,723, and what the offering documents said before I lost it This is the most expensive lesson in my portfolio and the one I link back to most often, so I’ll put the takeaway […]
LexShares Case #1101: The Copycat Fuel Injection System A small engineering firm proved a €14 billion auto giant stole their technology — but $50M+ in claimed damages became a 1.12x return The Numbers Invested $30,000 Returned $33,710 Net Profit $3,710 MOIC 1.12x IRR 4% Holding Period 1,699 days The Case A Michigan engineering firm developed […]
LexShares Case #617: The $5 Million They Should Have Taken A retail developer rejected a $5M settlement offer, went to trial, lost, appealed, lost again. Total loss. The Numbers Invested $82,500 Returned $0 Net Loss ($82,500) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,351 days The Case In 2009, a major metropolitan transit authority — one […]
LexShares Case #321: The Counterfeit Equipment Nightmare A small reseller bought “genuine” equipment from a Fortune 50 company. It was counterfeit. Their employees went to Chinese prison. The lawsuit went nowhere. The Numbers Invested $47,500 Returned $0 Net Profit ($47,500) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,648 days The Case In 2011, a small East […]
The Trademark Enforcement Campaign 15 lawsuits, 4+ years, and a 1.10x return — the economics of volume trademark litigation The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $54,970 Net Profit $4,970 MOIC 1.10x IRR 2.1% Holding Period 1,673 days Distributions 5 payments The Case A financial advisor built a nationally-recognized brand around his radio program. His company owned […]
LexShares Case #656: The Groundskeeper Who Made History Johnson v. Monsanto — the first Roundup cancer verdict, a $289M jury award, and my small piece of legal history The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $42,399 Net Profit $17,399 MOIC 1.70x IRR 29% Holding Period 770 days The Case You probably heard about this one. Dewayne Johnson […]
LexShares Case #1098: The 31-Payment Settlement A medical finance fraud case settled quickly — then took 2.5 years to pay out in installments The Numbers Invested $30,000 Returned $50,703 Net Profit $20,703 MOIC 1.69x IRR 65% Holding Period 1,061 days Payments Received 31 The Case A Florida investor spent seven years building a relationship with […]
LexShares Case #310: When Winning Still Loses Money UKnight v. Knights of Columbus — a $100 million lawsuit wins at trial, but the $500,000 verdict doesn’t cover the litigation funding The Numbers Invested $170,000 Returned $149,937 Net Profit ($20,063) MOIC 0.88x IRR -4.41% Holding Period 1,018 days The Case List Interactive v. Knights of Columbus […]
LexShares Case #249: A Total Loss What happens when the plaintiff loses at trial, then loses their lawyer The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $0 Net Profit ($50,000) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,079 days The Case A landlord leased 18,000 square feet of office space to a county child services agency in Pennsylvania. The […]
LexShares Case #678: When a Giant Copied the Startup A trade secrets case generated 1.76x in 15 months — via a plaintiff buyout The Numbers Invested $150,000 Returned $263,269 Net Profit $113,269 MOIC 1.76x IRR 58% Holding Period 456 days The Case Cosmetic injections are a $4+ billion global market. The problem: poorly trained providers […]
The Acquisition Exit: A 48-Month Deal Paid Off in 21 My best YieldStreet investment returned 13.14% in 21 months — and the reasons it worked are nowhere on the tear sheet that sold it My first YieldStreet investment — $250,000 into a diversified pool of pre-settlement advances — returned $289,248 for a 13.14% IRR against […]
LexShares Case #285: Riding the Rubber Band Craze How a toy licensing dispute turned $25,000 into $64,135 in under 2 years The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $64,135 Net Profit $39,135 MOIC 2.57x IRR 66% Holding Period 682 days The Case Remember when rubber band bracelets were everywhere? In 2013-2014, loom kits were the hottest toy […]
LexShares Case #217: My First Litigation Investment 640 days to break even — and why I consider that a win The Numbers Invested $10,000 Returned $10,000 Net Profit $0 MOIC 1.00x IRR 0% Holding Period 640 days The Case A software company developed a web-based payment platform for transportation companies. A Fortune 500 trucking conglomerate […]
LexShares Case #281: A 73-Day Win How a wealth management fraud case turned $75,000 into $134,295 in under 3 months The Numbers Invested $75,000 Returned $134,295 Net Profit $59,295 MOIC 1.79x IRR 1,741% Holding Period 73 days The Case A professional athlete trusted a major bank’s wealth management team with his career earnings. What followed […]
