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Investing In Lawsuits Beats the Street
guga31bb sends word on the next wave of investment in a slow market: bankrolling others' lawsuits. The practice sounds on the face of it indistinguishable from champerty. "Juris typically invests $500,000 to $3 million in a case, Mr. Desser said. He would not identify the company's backers, but said that 'on the portfolio as a whole, our returns are well in excess of 20 percent per year.' He added, 'We're certainly beating the market.'"
Or at least will require you to beat them off with a stick.
Treating the legal system as a business opportunity is not new, but to base a business model on it?
You guys should start cutting down on lawyer fees, fast.
well if that doesnt ring any alarm bells!
maybe we should introduce Bernake to these people :D
Investing in cultural naval gazing more like. When the process of legal shikanery yields better returns than investing in real world products then it is apparent that the our culture has run aground . . .
According to the article, they only invest in cases that are pretty much a surefire win for the plaintiff. This makes sense, because if they're in it to make money, then cases that are likely to be questionable are a bad investment.
Seems to me that they're actually doing a public service, by allowing little guys who can't afford to take on big corporations who have clearly done them wrong to proceed with a potentially expensive lawsuit. No longer can the party with deeper pockets simply fight a war of attrition and hope to run the other guy dry. If the plaintiff ends up winning he gets more than he would have gotten had he simply given up, and if somebody else makes a buck off it as well, then so much the better.
I'm not quite sure, but I want to say it's a good thing, since it in a small way reduces the problems for people who should win a case but do not due to lack of funding...
There are many things that people do as professions that are ethically questionable but undoubtedly legal. Not to harp on Maggie Sanger, but the ethics of abortion are intensely debated. However abortion remains legal in the U.S.A. Telemarketing is almost universally reviled, but people still make a living at it.
You would expect that ethics would take a big role in how the legal system is formulated, and for the most part you'd be right. But due to the creativity of human beings, the fruitful edges of legality and ethics can be sought out and exploited.
how does this relate to "your rights online" or "news for nerds?"
Mod parent troll
people can get emotionally attached to horses unlike lawyers. And I can make more than 20%
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
It relates because the business of software patents is very close to this. Patent litigation in the software sector is much higher than in any other sector and much of that litigation is speculative and funded by exactly the kind of VC TFA is talking about.
My blog
It's cases like this where it shows most clearly that our legal system has little to do with justice.
20% per year is not outrageously high. If a business makes 20% profit per year, it would be doing fairly well, but not spectacularly. The problem is with GUARANTEEING that rate of return to others. That's when it becomes fraud. But simply stating that you're making that much, especially when it's true, is perfectly legitimate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swynfen_will_case
Got promised 1.3mil to win a case, the first case I've run. Had sex with the hot beneficiary. Won the case. Didn't get paid. She married someone else and sued me for misconduct. My life sucks.
Finally some sound business! We'll make derivatives stocks based on the outcome of such lawsuits, you know, people always like to bet. Ok so now I'm just missing a quote system.. oh, hang on, there's bookkeeping in football, we can use that
And even an idiot can have a good year in the lawsuit world. Like the stock world, you print the statistics that make you look best to encourage more investors, and you don't want to admit that if you role a fair dice 3 times, for 12.5 % of the people who do it it will win every time, and for 12.5% it will lose every time. You, as the salesmen for the investment services, make your money from the transaction fees (and the bribes and kickbacks ans shwag), not from the investors winning or losing.
The trial attorney's primary asset is his experience in court - his ability to win cases.
But that makes it difficult to hit a bank for a loan.
So he - like generations of skilled craftsmen and professionals before him - seeks financing outside the normal banking system.
There is the side issue of collection from the client who isn't paying his bill. Corporate litigation at the highest level tends to more rather more work and expense than the collision at Third and Main.
Gah. Does the phrase "independent contractor" ring a bell with anyone here? Or are you all still living in the Dorm?
we're certainly beating the market
Lemonade stand beats the street. Fuck, when looking at the past 2 years, anyone who made $1 profit "BEAT THE STREET".
I should have said: /to fund litigation/ .. cough .. for Unix licenses.
You mean like Microsoft paying SCO an "undisclosed sum"
We all bemoan how the non-moneyed are at the mercy of the wealthy in the legal system. Perhaps "angel investors" in a legitimate case are not such a bad idea?
expandfairuse.org
Begging your pardon; where's the dichotomy?
In this letter, I will do my best to make my arguments against Tygerstripes clear and articulate. I plan to utilize numerous examples and maybe even some occasional humor so as not to strain your patience as I delve into immense detail about how only those individuals who are able to accept evidence and think clearly about it can inculcate in the reader an inquisitive spirit and a skepticism about beliefs that Tygerstripes's surrogates take for granted. Before I launch into my main topic, I want to make a few matters crystal-clear: (1) I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every person who on the platform or in book, magazine, or newspaper, with merciless severity strives to throw down the gauntlet and challenge Tygerstripes's subalterns to bring meaning, direction, and purpose into our lives, and (2) as a result of that, he should just exercise some common sense and some common decency. Now that you know where I stand on those issues, I can safely say that there is one crucial fact that we must not overlook if we are to perceive our current situation as it is, rather than in the anamorphosis of some "ideology" such as cannibalism or escapism. Specifically, the biggest difference between me and Tygerstripes is that Tygerstripes wants to inject even more fear and divisiveness into political campaigns. I, on the other hand, want to examine the warp and woof of his mottos. The quest to skewer me over a pit barbecue is the true inner kernel of his philosophy, insofar as this figment of an obdurate brain can be designated a "philosophy". Why do I tell you this? Because these days, no one else has the guts to.
Tygerstripes complains a lot. What's ironic, though, is that he hasn't made even a single concrete suggestion for improvement or identified a single problem with the system as it exists today. Actually, an axiom among his associates is that women are spare parts in the social repertoireâ"mere optional extras. Now, I could go off on that point alone, but repeating something over and over does not make it true. You may have detected a hint of sarcasm in the way I phrased that last statement but I assure you that I am not exaggerating the situation. When I was little, my father would sometimes pick me up, put me on his knee, and say "Sometimes the best course of action will be obvious, sometimes not."
Tygerstripes's the type of person who will trump up any lie for the occasion, and the more of a thumper it is, the better he likes it. From what I understand, Tygerstripes and his emissaries are sleazy, narrow-minded muttonheads. This is not set down in complaint against them, but merely as analysis.
If the human race is to survive on this planet, we will have to ensure that we survive and emerge triumphant out of the coming chaos and destruction. Permitting longiloquent humanity-haters to base racial definitions on lineage, phrenological characteristics, skin hue, and religion is tantamount to suicide. What's my problem, then? Allow me to present it in the form of a question: Do brusque fruitcakes like Tygerstripes's minions actually have lives, or do they exist solely to spew forth ignorance and prejudice? The complete answer to that question is a long, sad story. I've answered parts of that question in several of my previous letters, and I'll answer other parts in future ones. For now, I'll just say that Tygerstripes had promised us liberty, equality, and fraternity. Instead, he gave us nativism, careerism, and favoritism. I suppose we should have seen that coming, especially since Tygerstripes's tricks have experienced a considerable amount of evolution (or perhaps more accurately, genetic drift) over the past few weeks. They used to be simply repressive. Now, not only are they both grungy and ill-bred, but they also serve as unequivocal proof that the irony is that Tygerstripes's most foul-mouthed shenanigans are also his most beastly. As the French say, "Les extremes se touchent."
The two things I just mentionedâ"the way that it is a cardinal principle that much of Tygerstri
As the US turns to heavy litigation, the targets flee. Start-ups consider greener pastures.
Want proof? The country that led the industrial revolution is now a service industry nation.
As consumer protection lawsuits pervail, industry leaves. Small planes, diving boards, vaccines, and other products are not made in the US simply because of litigation and the threat of litigation.
The risks to the nation are huge including massive trade defecits, collapse of the economy due to devalued hard currancy, and shortages of supplies in time of need as we depend on overseas manufacturing. The latest risk is the swine flu. Nobody in the US makes the vaccine. In a pandemic, demand in the home country may cut supplies off entirely as the limited capacity is used elsewhere. This is the result of runaway litigation.
I worked in a shop at one time where the owner refused to provide service to laywers. They were the second most likely bunch to not pay, or demand second and third services unpaid. Only on other group exceeded laywers in not paying for services.
Welcome to a litigious society.
The truth shall set you free!
Old American Dream: Rugged self reliance, hard work and innovation lead to success and propserity.
New American Dream: Have the government take care of you while you attempt to win a lawsuit or the lottery.
According to the article, they only invest in cases that are pretty much a surefire win for the plaintiff.
But what happens when a win is not a certainty at all? What if the real purpose of the suit is to harass the defendant or coerce them into settling? Would it be OK to provide 3rd-party funding for the RIAA lawsuits? Most of their cases are too flimsy to go to trial. But for the most part, these cases throw off enough cash to justify the investment. Just as "junk bonds" often have high yields, "junk lawsuits" might offer a good return on investment.
And what happens when the 3rd-party funding is for a questionable case whose main goal is to impede a competitor, coincidentally for the benefit of the funding source? Microsoft's involvement with SCO is one example.
In those cases where the defendants prevail, the "litigation investors" losses are capped at 100% their investment as far as I can tell. The actual plaintiffs may lose more. In fact, they may even go bankrupt, leaving the defendant with an uncollectible judgment. I wish there was a way for the litigation investors to share in the downside of a loss. Using SCO vs. IBM as one example, Why shouldn't Microsoft have to pick up the tab for SCO's liability, proportional to their funding of the scheme?
6. Laws must be written in a way that is understandable to laymen. If the IRS can do it, so can the legislators.
7. The total text of all laws applying to individuals cannot exceed one million words (that's about 10 normal novels, or four really thick ones). For businesses, you get another million.
There are so many laws of such complexity that no layman can possibly be aware of them all - much less understand them. If "ignorance of the law is no excuse" then it must be possible for a normal person to actually know what the law is.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
In order to change this, laws should be written at least as unambiguous as RFC's, for starters.
. . . we would have no Internet today; we would still be waiting.
IETF: "We plan to have ARP through legal by 2012. TCP and UDP might make it sometime around 2050."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Good lawyers are actually legal hackers. They look for the edge cases where the law is broken for the good of their client. There's really a lot in common between programmers and lawyers.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
When robbery is permitted (or, at least, can be carried out with little risk) it will flourish, since it's easier to steal something than to create it. This is why Somali pirates are so successful at present.
The enactment of "loser pays" laws would reduce this activity by increasing the cost of this sort of theft.
1. Investment is made in lawsuit that is likely to win, but can't continue for lack of funds
2. Justice is done
3. The little guy wins, could not have done it without investor's help
4. Profit! (Commission for the vendor)
If there is anything unethical about the situation, it's that these lawsuits are in a position where farming out the commission to 3rd party investors is the only way to see justice done and avoid being trampled by richer entities.
As other posters have pointed out, the real problem is that the laws are so complicated no one can comply with them. I would suggest a few simple changes to (eventually) fix the problem. Firstly, have all laws expire after a fixed length of time, unless renewed by the legislature. Secondly, require all legislation to be read aloud in the legislature, in full, with a quorum of members present, before it can become law. Thirdly, enact a lifetime ban on practicing law in a jurisdiction where a person has been involved in enacting a law. This would put an end to the domination of most legislatures by lawyers who, when they leave the legislature, make a very profitable career out of interpreting the gobbledygook they wrote into the law.
2. Hire someone competent [faqs.org] to rewrite the laws, aiming for clarity and precision.
You mean, like, a lawyer?
That's exactly what we've got now. Corporate Amerika has hired large teams of professionals (competent to satisfy corporate's needs anyway) and made sure those professionals got placed into office by using whatever social engineering skills were necessary to manipulate the voters. Those so-called professionals are more commonly known as congressmen and senators.
Look at the kind of crap that the SCO Group pulled over the last six years...
Conversely, don't create new laws for situations already covered by old laws just for the sake of looking progressive (e.g. If fraud is already illegal, there shouldn't need to be separate laws stating fraud is illegal through the mail, over the phone or over the internet).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
as a business method then they'd have to stump up licensing fees in order to do it...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The Civil court system exists to transfer money from people without law degrees to people that have them.
As far as I can tell there are no legal ethics and lawyers always act in their self interest, NOT in the interests of their client.
I wish that it where not so, but it is.
It is a system run by lawyers, with oversight by lawyers, for the benefit of lawyers at the expense of everyone else. They will lie or do anything else they need to to get their way.
If you don't belive me, sell your house to an attorny and see what happens. These people are pure evil.
yeah right Go all in in TMR today on a pullback in the mid .50s
you will see 3.00 by Aug
I think that will beat your 20%
beaten down oil co, when summer demand is coming up. I hope tomorrows Schork report drives it down further so I can double up.
and I think ATPG looks just as good.
These arent pennys being manipulated and pumped. nyse with vol yesterday over 3 mil
20% per year is not outrageously high
No?
Looks pretty good to me.
... this differs from the way the ACLU backs certain cases how exactly?
Have gnu, will travel.
Once upon a time, our elected official were people who had built their own businesses
No, once upon a time our elected officials were wealthy children of privilege, former military officers, and guess what, lawyers (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln). You know when we had an influx of small businesspeople? During the "Republican revolution" of the 90's, when a bunch of rural, extreme right-wing small businessmen suddenly came into power. They tried to destroy the environment, take off all restraints on corporate greed, and tried to cripple the federal government, before falling out of power themselves due to their rampant corruption.
Today, our electees are basically all lawyers - and we have an economy in meltdown, archaic business efforts are kept around, and even subsidized because it buys votes, and we have a financial system where one can do better with destruction rather than construction.
Our electees are not all lawyers. A good percentage have law degrees, but it's certainly not anywhere near "all." And they are, indeed, ELECTEES. They were elected to office by the people, and it's not up to you to criticize. Besides which, non-lawyers tend to write horrible laws. They're not good at it.
The economic meltdown was not caused by legislators having law degrees, it was caused by unrestrained greed and deregulation of financial institutions. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was a major cause of the financial meltdown. Gramm was an economist. Leach and Bliley were small businessmen. None were lawyers. Maybe we needed MORE lawyers in Congress, huh?
Here is the missing link: http://www.pakin.org/complaint
FYI, it is a rant generator. Getting too many clichés in one post makes me suspicious.
Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
Whatever you think about the Book of Mormon, it was published in 1830, and it has an interesting description of "judges" (what we would call "lawyers") creating cases out of thin air, because they were paid for the time they spent on cases (See Alma 11).
The idea is not novel at all.
Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
I get it. You have learned to copy and paste.
Yep, the quote from the Good Book is "[T]he love of money is the root of all evil." (Emphasis added.)
As your post so subtly hints, money is just a tool.
Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
I disagree that with the claim that laws can't be simplified. There are really only three types of crimes: Bloody, monetary, and control. We could replace the confusing crap of various specific rules with 'guideliness' and rule that all 'non-guideline' based stuff immediately gets kicked up to appeal to verify. Example of a simple law. Any claim of taking money/item of value without the legal right to it is entitled to triple reimbursement plus imprisonment time. Followed by an auto-inflation adjusting chart for amount stolen vs. Time in prison, with a set of factors to increase, such as "fully accidental theft = no time and just double reimbrusement", "Negligenct but not accidental theft = 1/2 time", "Taken from charity = time *2) "Taken as revenge = 1/3 time", "Taken in anger without revenge = double time". Things like that. This in effect creates one set of rules for both non-violent break and entree and say embezzlement. It would make things fairer.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com