Should lawsuits be about justice, or just making a buck? Of course, lawyers and judges have to get paid, and money judgments exist to pay for harm done and discourage harm in the future. Still, we want the system itself to be about justice. This is why we have ethical rules for judges and lawyers, as well as for the parties on either side of a lawsuit.

Yet a new trend in lawsuits has introduced a third party, with a lot more money: lawsuit investors.

Imagine your neighbors sue you, accusing you of allowing drainage from your property to flow onto their property and damage their house. You’re scraping together money to hire a lawyer, but you hear that your neighbors have secret financial backers. Their interest in the case? Simply to make money if you lose—or if you settle.

This is a strange new direction for our civil justice system, but it’s becoming pervasive. The most recent figures suggest that firms with more than $15 billion in assets are involved in third-party litigation funding, or TPLF. 

The Oklahoma Legislature is considering legislation (HB 2619 and SB 1065) that would bring transparency to TPLF. This would allow all Oklahomans to understand what is happening and whether anything more needs to be done.

Other important tort reform bills are pending in the legislature, including measures to keep courts from regulating legal products (like firearms); to allow a defendant to recover their costs when they win after offering to settle the case; and to reinstate a cap on noneconomic damages that liberal Oklahoma Supreme Court justices previously struck down.

All of these measures would help protect Oklahoma’s economic growth while making lawsuits more about justice and less about just trying to make a buck.