NEW
YORK, Feb. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Burford
Capital, the leading global finance and asset management firm
focused on law, today releases new independent research
demonstrating that an increasing number of businesses are
recognizing litigation portfolios as value sources and are becoming
more open to tools that help them reframe the legal department from
overhead to capital source.
In the nearly 15 years since Burford's inception and in the wake
of the last great recession, how businesses view their litigation
and arbitration portfolios has drastically changed. Pressures on
cost management have been persistent through turbulent economic
times, Covid, supply chain constraints, geopolitical tensions and
slow economic growth in major economies. To better understand how
in-house lawyers and finance professionals expect these dual issues
of cost management and value generation to evolve in the years
ahead, Burford commissioned independent research with 400 GCs,
heads of litigation, senior in-house lawyers, CFOs and other
leaders responsible for litigation decision-making in their
companies.
Highlights from the research include:
- Businesses' already significant investment in litigation is
growing: 43% of GCs say litigation spend will grow at least 25%
in the next five years.
- GCs and CFOs are aligned in seeking innovation for the legal
department: More than half of businesses (55%) either have an
affirmative recovery program (18%) or intend to build one
(37%)—making it all the more important that best practices are in
place to manage costs and optimize outcomes.
- GCs and CFOs agree that collaboration is needed but differ
on its extent: 70% of GCs and CFOs say it is important that the
legal department find new ways to recover value—signaling a shared
desire to reframe the legal department as a capital source.
However, three times as many in-house lawyers as finance
professionals say the decision to pursue potential claims is
generally left to legal with little input from finance.
- Legal finance is a key tool and finance has an important
role in leveraging it: Almost three quarters (73%) of all
respondents say their organizations have used legal finance (39%)
or would consider doing so (34%), and more than two thirds (67%) of
finance professionals feel that legal can increase its value to the
business by using tools like legal finance.
Christopher Bogart, Chief
Executive Officer of Burford Capital said: "The trend of
'corporate finance for law' is growing, as confirmed by this
research and our own business, given that more than 50% of our
commitments are now with corporates. That's due to the impact legal
finance can have on reducing the impact of litigation on the
P&L and business leaders' desire to use their capital to
maximize shareholder value, not pay lawyers. This marks our
15th year in business – and while the legal field is
generally slow to change, this research reinforces that CFOs and
GCs are thinking about their legal departments differently, and
Burford is laser-focused on helping companies reframe the legal
department more as capital source than overhead."
The Litigation Economics: CFOs and GCs weigh in on best
practices in optimizing legal department value survey can
be downloaded on Burford's website. The research was conducted by
GLG from December 2023 – January 2024.
About Burford Capital
Burford Capital is the leading global finance and asset
management firm focused on law. Its businesses
include litigation finance and risk
management, asset recovery and a wide range of legal
finance and advisory activities. Burford is publicly traded on the
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUR) and the London Stock Exchange
(LSE: BUR), and it works with companies and law firms around the
world from its offices in New
York, London, Chicago, Washington,
DC, Singapore,
Dubai, Sydney and Hong
Kong.
For more information, please
visit www.burfordcapital.com.
This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or
the solicitation of an offer to buy any ordinary shares or other
securities of Burford.
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SOURCE Burford Capital