Standing Behind our Ethos: Bentham Provides the Community with Access to Justice

Holding Hands

Alternative litigation finance helps bring meritorious cases through the often lengthy and expensive gauntlet of a lawsuit.  While Bentham provides funding for complex commercial and business matters, Bentham also stands behind its policy of providing access to justice to honorable causes of public interest and have lent support to cases that help the greater good.

For example in Australia, Bentham supports PIAC (the “Public Interest Advocacy Centre”) by providing costs indemnities in high-profile discrimination matters.  The legal system down under has an “adverse costs rule” which requires the loser in a case to pay the prevailing party’s legal costs.  By alleviating the risk of payment of these adverse costs, Bentham gives righteous parties the opportunity to have their day in court.  In conjunction with PIAC, Bentham has helped enforce numerous matters of public interest.  Some examples include:  enforcing guidelines implementing the provision of usable space to allow for wheelchair access in taxis; enforcing the rights of the wheelchair-bound to use buses; and improving the use of audible next-stop announcements on trains for the benefit of the sight-impaired.

Bentham firmly stands behind its ethos of providing access to justice, not just for those cases where it will mutually benefit, but also in those cases that stand to enforce social justice and equality.