The U.S. GAO's landmark study of the litigation finance market found 39 active litigation funders operating in the United States at the end of 2023, collectively managing roughly $15.2 billion in assets, with an additional $2.7 billion in new deal commitments outstanding at that point, a useful, independently verified baseline in an industry where individual firms rarely disclose full portfolio data.
The most current annual snapshot, Westfleet Advisors' 2026 report, counts the same 39 active commercial funders (including one new entrant), with new case commitments rising to $2.8 billion, up roughly 23% from the prior year, signaling renewed financing activity after a period of retrenchment. Notably, Westfleet's newest report stopped publishing an aggregate assets-under-management estimate altogether, a sign of how hard that figure has become to verify as the funder base has grown and diversified. The report also documents a real shift in who's taking that capital: the 200 largest U.S. law firms accounted for just under a quarter of new case commitments as of mid-2025, down sharply from 37% a year earlier, as Big Law pulls back from investor-funded litigation amid growing scrutiny of the practice.
A secondary market has also emerged, in which funders sell existing stakes in still-pending cases to other investors before a matter resolves, letting a primary funder recycle capital or exit risk it no longer wants to carry, and letting new investors buy into a case at a later, sometimes lower-risk stage than the original financing decision. Institutional capital behind these firms increasingly includes endowments, pensions, and hedge funds seeking a return stream that is largely uncorrelated with broader financial markets.