Survey Says: Use of Alternative Fee Arrangements on the Rise

Law 360’s recent report on the results of Norton Rose Fulbright’s 2016 Litigation Trends Annual Survey, questioned approximately 600 corporate counsel in 24 countries about current litigation issues and trends. One notable trend on the rise is the use of Alternative Fee Arrangements (“AFAs”) as 60% of those surveyed used AFAs during the past year in their practice. Of those that used AFAs, 97% were pleased with the arrangement. In addition to reducing costs on a firm-wide basis, corporate counsel found AFAs provided more certainty and allowed for better control and efficiency over work performed.

Law 360 spoke with Saul Perloff, a Norton Rose Fulbright partner in Texas, who observed that AFAs are “…about sharing risk sometimes. And then it’s also…about helping improve predictability. [Executives are] going to look to the general counsel to provide reasonable and rational estimates of costs and exposure. The general counsel can manage that by using AFAs in the right circumstances.” One type of AFA corporate counsel can look to that helps provide predictability of legal costs as well as manage risk is litigation funding.

In a recent blog post, Dave Kerstein, an Investment Manager in Bentham’s NY office, pointed out 5 ways litigation funding can help general counsel leverage their budget to not only manage risk, but also allocate room to bring plaintiff-side cases in an effort to protect a company’s rights in the marketplace. Expanding on the topic of how funding can help law firms, David Gallagher, an Investment Manager in Bentham’s LA office, discussed in further detail the advantages of law firm portfolio funding and how they can be used creatively.

As the use of AFAs will undoubtedly continue to rise, contact us to learn more about how your firm or company can implement litigation funding to curb risk and recover assets.