This means that if the claimant needs to build a team to fight their litigation, the funder can help identify the best people with the right expertise who will provide the best value for money.
A claimant who either cannot, or does not wish to, fund the litigation him or herself, can therefore engage a team of top-tier professionals to maximise the prospects of success.
This is particularly valuable in the context of high value trusts or inheritance disputes, where the claimants will generally be individuals with little or no experience of litigation, and for whom the whole process is unfamiliar, daunting and hugely stressful.
Working alongside an experienced funder, with whom the claimant’s interests are entirely aligned, can provide invaluable comfort in navigating the best course to a successful outcome.
That success will most obviously come in the form of a favourable judgment.
It is, however, relatively rare that inheritance disputes actually make it to court.
Settlement is, by far, the most common outcome, and a funder can add real value in these circumstances too.
Early settlement
While the final decision as to whether to settle a claim and for how much ultimately rests with the claimant, the funder can assist in the assessment of a settlement offer to ensure that it is fair and delivers the value that the claimant is seeking, without regard to the emotional considerations that inevitably come into play in these types of disputes.
Again, this aspect of the funder/claimant relationship can be hugely valuable to the individual claimant inexperienced in the nuances and pitfalls that litter the litigation battlefield.
Finally, a benefit of litigation funding that is often overlooked is that success can be achieved through obtaining a more advantageous settlement at an earlier stage of the proceedings.
This is because the tactical advantage often enjoyed by well-funded trustees or other officers will have been eradicated.
An early settlement thereby becomes a more attractive proposition on the defendant side because, ultimately, very few people ever actually want to go to court.
Andrew Jones is managing director at Vannin Capital