A Legal Startup Will Pay For You to Sue Equifax

A Legal Startup Will Pay For You to Sue Equifax

7 years ago
Anonymous $wKBR2uNMvM

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43adqq/legalist-equifax

A startup specializing in litigation finance—the funding of other people's lawsuits—says it will pay for you to sue Equifax, the credit-monitoring firm that lost the social security numbers and other sensitive personal information of 143 million Americans.

Litigation finance is a controversial field. Essentially, a well-financed person or company pays the legal fees for an aggrieved party to file a lawsuit. The financier then takes a cut of the ultimate judgment. Boosters say this allows people who normally couldn't afford to participate in the legal system to do so, but often, litigation finance is used by wealthy people to make money or to use a third-party to pursue legal action against companies or people they don't like. For instance, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel paid for Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media, even though he wasn't involved in that specific case.