In an interview with The Lawyer magazine for their upcoming July/August edition, Augusta Ventures MD Louis Young has discussed the "past, present and future" of third-party funding in the litigation sector.
Augusta Ventures is a legal services firm that provides solutions for litigation and arbitration funding and offers a non-recourse service to its clients. This means that if clients don't see a positive outcome from their work with the firm, Augusta do not collect a return on their investment.
Augusta also offer access to ATE, or after-the-event, insurance, which protects claimants from adverse cost risks in the event that such a legal service is necessary.
Providing early-stage funding means that clients in litigation battles have more time to focus on their legal strategy as well as being able to make decisions more authoritatively without worrying as much about the costs involved. Augusta have attained a laudable 70 per cent win rate in their seven years in operation.
As well as operating in London, the firm also has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto, and is seen as one of the leading lights in the legal finance sector.
In his interview with The Lawyer for a long-read regarding the past, present and future of this fledgling sector, MD and Co-founder Louis Young described the present market as "the time for funders to really boom in the UK".
"Rather than being opportunistic, it is important to be a supportive partner, as the market doesn't function without claimants and law firms.
"But if there is a shock to that system, funders can support it"
The article sets Young's comments into context by describing the landscape of the third-party legal finance sector: “It has been a decade of remarkable growth for third-party funding, with some of the UK’s most considerable cases receiving the backing from big beasts such as Burford Capital, Therium and Augusta Ventures.”
For more information about Augusta Ventures, you can visit their website here, or listen to co-founder Robert Hanna's Leaders Council podcast here. The original article in The Lawyer can be read here.
