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'Legalist' Startup Automates The Lawsuit Strategy Peter Thiel Used To Bankrupt Gawker (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Gizmodo: "Two Harvard undergraduates have created a service called Legalist that uses what they call 'data-backed litigation financing,' analyzing civil lawsuits with an algorithm to predict case outcomes and determine which civil lawsuits are worth investing in," reports Gizmodo. The process is very similar to what billionaire Peter Thiel did when he secretly funded a lawsuit from Hulk Hogan against Gawker Media. "Legalist says it uses an algorithm of 58 different variables including, as [Legalist cofounder] Eva Shang told the Silicon Valley Business Journal, who the presiding judge is and the number of cases the judge is currently working on. The algorithm has been fed cases dating back to 1989 and helps people figure out how long a case will last and the risks associated with it. In a presentation at Y Combinator's Demo Day on Tuesday [Legalist was developed as part of Y Combinator's Summer 2016 class], the founders claimed that the startup funded one lawsuit for $75,000 and expects a return of more than $1 million. Shang says the $1.40 is earned for every $1 spent in litigation financing, which can prove to be a profitable enterprise when you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars." Shang told Business Insider in reference to the Gawker lawsuit, "That's the kind of thing we're staying away from here." The company will supposedly be focusing on commercial and small-business lawsuits, and will not be backing lawsuits by individuals.
If you don't want to be bankrupted, don't post a nude sex tape of someone who was filmed without his knowledge, and then ignore a court order to take it down. Just saying.
Awesome. Unleashing AI and Big Data on the Law. The fireworks are going to be awesome on this one. I give it 10 maybe 20 years before the whole system implodes. Everyone will be sued into oblivion.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Gawker's behavior bankrupted Gawker, end of story. Peter Thiel picked up the legal bills so that the person they wronged could afford to sue them. It's a sad commentary on the American legal system that even a celebrity with some extant wealth can't financially sustain a lawsuit on his own.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
"Legalist says it uses an algorithm of 58 different variables including, as [Legalist cofounder] Eva Shang told the Silicon Valley Business Journal, who the presiding judge is
That different judges give different outcomes is already common knowledge but putting an actual dollar value on it might have significant repercussions.
What happens when someone asks for a judge to recuse themselves because the litigation value tripled when the judge got assigned? It's a lot harder to defend the integrity of the system when supposedly impartial actors have quantifiable effects.
I stole this Sig
startup wanted to cash in on this. Lawsuits as a Service! Can't wait until this extends to software patent litigation.
If there is a problem with the legal system, then the solution is to fix that problem rather than deny people access to the courts. This app is a Good Thing if it means that normal people can have the same access to justice as billionaires like Peter.
When your legal system becomes the realm of financial investment trading you KNOW your system is broken.
I look forward to the creation of a new stock exchange. Lets call it LAWDAC. You can now day trade on court cases.
Let Asians build the world's fastest trains and the continent-wide energy systems we can only dream about. We have lawsuit AI technology we can use to rob each other blind as we cash those unemployment checks.