Jonathan Barnes is Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at Woodsford Group Limited. Before leaving private practice, Jonathan enjoyed a successful 20-year career in the City of London as a transactional lawyer. In 2006 he joined longstanding client Woodsford Consulting – a business consultancy and Family Office of a wealthy European family – as a director and subsequently CEO. Jonathan co-founded Woodsford Litigation Funding in 2010 and has been central to its successful growth. Woodsford is a founder member of the Association of Litigation Funders of England and Wales and Jonathan serves on its Board.
T +44 20 7313 8079
E jbarnes@woodsford.com
Gary Barnett is the Executive Director and General Counsel of the International Legal Finance Association (ILFA), which was founded to represent the global commercial legal finance community. Based in Washington, DC, but with members throughout the world, ILFA is the only global association of commercial legal finance companies. ILFA and its members benefit from Gary's various experiences throughout government, where he has shown an ability to gain consensus and accomplish the stated objective. Gary has served in a number of senior positions in government, including his most recent role at the Department of Justice as a Senior Counselor to the U.S. Attorney General. He previously served as the Staff Director and Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. Gary received his J.D. from Georgetown University and his B.S. in Economics and History from Boston University.
T +1 202 961 7421
E gbarnett@ilfa.com
Christopher Bogart is Chief Executive Officer, a director and a co-founder of Burford Capital, and also serves as a member of its Commitment Committee. He is one of the most frequently cited and sought-after experts in the field across the mainstream media and legal and financial press. Before co-founding Burford, Christopher was Executive Vice President & General Counsel of Time Warner Inc. where he managed one of the largest legal functions in the world. He also served as Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Cable Ventures and one of four senior executives operating Time Warner Cable, with $9 billion in revenue and 30,000 employees, and as Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Entertainment Ventures. Prior to Time Warner, Christopher was a litigator at law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.
T +1 212 235 6820
E cbogart@burfordcapital.com
Christopher DeLise is elta Capital Partners. In 2011, Christopher DeLise founded Delta Capital Partner in Chicago after successful careers in law and finance. Delta’s operations now span North America, Europe and Asia, and the firm continues to play instrumental roles in developing new products, services, and markets worldwide. Before founding Delta, Christopher was formerly an EquityPartner at K&L Gates LLP, where his practice focused on representing investment funds, financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies, and institutional and individual investors in matters ranging from fund formation and governance to compliance, and from cross-border M&A and strategic and financing transactions to all facets of starting, operating and selling technology companies. Christopher previously served as Chairman of the PrivateInvestment Funds practice group at Husch Blackwell LLP, and prior to that was an attorney in the private equity practice group of DLA Piper LLP.During his professional career, Christopher has been involved in virtually every aspect of conceptualizing, forming, operating, financing, managing, and advising private investment funds having served as principal as well as outside and in-house general counsel to venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds.eLise has been named to Law Dragon 100’s list of most influential funders in 2020 and 2021.
Susan Dunn is co-founder of Harbour Litigation Funding and is one of the most experienced and well-known professionals in the funding sector. A pioneer of litigation funding in the UK, Susan has been sourcing and investing for over 15 years’ and during this time has provided significant input to the development of public policy. Susan was a founding member of the Association of Litigation Funders of England and Wales, and continues to play an important role with this body. Susan has previously worked as a litigator in the UK and the US where she was also a diplomat (Vice-Consul Investment), for the British Government.
T +44020 3829 9320
E susan.dunn@harbourlf.com
Allen Fagin is a board member and senior advisor to Validity Finance. He is a well-known attorney and former chairman of Proskauer Rose, LLP. Allen began his career at Proskauer in 1976, and specialized in employment litigation, co-chairing the firm’s Labor and Employment Law Department for many years. During his tenure as chairman of Proskauer (2005-2011), the firm grew to over 750 lawyers and approximately 1,500 employees, and opened offices in London, Sao Paulo, Chicago, and Hong Kong.
Allen previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert L. Carter, United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York. He is an honors graduate of Columbia College, Harvard Law School, and the JFK School of Government at Harvard, where he received a J.D. and a master’s degree in Public Policy.
William Farrell is Managing Director and General Counsel at Longford Capital, which he co-founded in 2011. He is an accomplished attorney with more than 20 years of complex litigation experience, including extensive trial and appellate experience in the United States as both a government prosecutor and as a partner in the commercial litigation departments of two prominent national law firms. William serves as an adjunct professor of law at the Baylor Law School teaching a course on litigation finance.
T +1 312 212 8240
E wfarrell@longfordcapital.com
Sarah Johnson serves as head of the Litigation Investing team within the D. E. Shaw group’s Private Credit investment unit. The Litigation Investing team provides financing solutions to law firms, plaintiffs, and other parties involved in commercial litigation. Ms. Johnson joined the D. E. Shaw group in 2006 as an analyst primarily working on distressed credit-related investments, including restructurings, opportunities in stressed equities, litigation plays (including monetizing litigation assets), and bankruptcy liquidations. She has led the Litigation Investing team since its formation in 2018. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Johnson was an associate in the restructuring and finance group of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. She began her career as an investment banking analyst at Salomon Smith Barney Inc. Ms. Johnson graduated cum laude from Duke University with a B.A. in economics and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a managing editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and James Kent Scholar
E Sarah.Johnson@deshaw.com
Ian Garrard is Managing Director and a director of Innsworth Advisors, based in London. Innsworth sources, evaluates and manages investments in litigation and arbitration. Prior to Innsworth Ian has had over 25 years’ experience, in private legal practice (having founded two successful law firms) and in senior executive roles, of managing large scale disputes across many jurisdictions. Ian is recognized by various publications as a leader in litigation funding.
E igarrard@innsworth.com
David Icikson is Chief OperatingOfficer and Head of Investor Relations for Parabellum Capital. He joined Parabellum Capital in 2014 and has responsibility for the firm’s investor relations and capital formation, compliance, technology, and human resources functions. He is also a member of Parabellum Capital’s InvestmentCommittee. David joined the firm after spending fourteen years at Goldman Sachs where he served in several roles, including COO for Fixed Income North Americas Sales, Chief of Staff for Global Recruiting, and global head of Goldman Sachs University for the Securities Division. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, David served as Deputy Executive Secretary at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he was a member of the Chief of Staff’s office for Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.
Hassan Murphy is a founder and co-managing partner of TRGP Investment Partners LP and is responsible for overall corporate management and oversight, deal sourcing, investment selection, portfolio construction, and commercial litigation initiatives. Hassan is also a member of TRGP’s Board of Directors, the Board ofHuman Rights First and the Board of Visitors of the University of MarylandSchool of Law. Formerly, Hassan was a nationally recognized trial lawyer in tort, products, consumer class actions, environmental, civil rights, data breach and complex commercial litigation, leading the firm he managed – Murphy,Falcon & Murphy – to over $1 Billion in verdicts and settlements. Results included the then largest punitive damages verdict and the largest private groundwater contamination settlement inMaryland history and the largest police shooting settlement in the UnitedStates. Hassan has been appointed lead counsel and/or to the plaintiffs’ steering committee in multiple class actions across the country.
As defense counsel to Fortune 500’s in bet-the-company litigation in venues across the country, Hassan worked with C-suite leadership to mitigate risk and significantly reduce payouts.
He has been named National Trial Lawyer of theYear by Lawyers for Public Justice and to the Top 100 Black Lawyers in America. He holds a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D. from Georgetown University.
Kevin McCaffrey is the Chief Executive Officer at Law Finance Group (“LFG”). LFG has been providing financing alternatives to law firms and their clients for over 25 years. Kevin is a seasoned finance executive having occupied leadership roles in equities and alternative investments at Citigroup and its predecessor firms. Kevin was on the Management Committees of Citi’s North American Equity Division, Global Alternative Investments and Global Research over the course of his tenure. Kevin built and managed the #1 ranked (Institutional Investor) U.S. Equity Research Department. Additionally, his investment experience includes board seats on Citi’s Asian Private Equity Funds and Managing Partner of Absolute Value LLC, a Citi Proprietary hedge fund.
T (212) 446-6789
E kmccaffrey@lawfinance.com
Mr.Neumark is a Managing Director based in New York in the Fortress Credit Funds business, co-head of the Specialty Finance group and CIO of Legal Assets at Fortress. Mr. Neumark also serves on the investment committee for the Credit Funds business at Fortress and is a member of the Management Committee of Fortress. Prior to joining Fortress in May 2010, Mr. Neumark was a Senior VicePresident at Plainfield Asset Management, a large distressed debt hedge fund based in Greenwich, CT, where he served on several boards as well as ad hoc creditor committees. Mr. Neumark also practiced law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen& Katz, in the restructuring and finance group and at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, in the corporate group. Mr. Neumark received his B.A. inEuropean History from Vanderbilt University with Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude honors and his J.D. from UCLA School of Law.
Raymond van Hulst, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Omni Bridgeway, is an industry veteran with more than 20 years’ experience structuring innovative solutions for complex and high value dispute funding and legal enforcement matters globally.
Mr van Hulst has established three institutionally backed funds aimed at funding legal disputes and enforcement matters. He established continental Europe’s first litigation fund, with EUR 150 million (Omni Bridgeway’s Fund 6). He subsequently established a world-first US$100 million litigation fund and joint venture with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank for the Distressed Asset Recovery Program focused on litigation funding and enforcement for non-performing loans in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Mr. van Hulst has also managed the structuring of the innovative insurance wrapped Fund 8, which Omni Bridgeway launched in 2023.
Mr van Hulst has been in various leadership roles within Omni Bridgeway since 2002, involved in all aspects of the business. He played a significant role in both the 2019 merger with IMF Bentham Limited and the 2017 acquisition of German funder Roland ProzessFinanz resulting in Omni Bridgeway’s position as the world’s leading provider of legal finance.
Prior to Omni Bridgeway, Mr van Hulst was a structured finance specialist with ABN AMRO Bank. He worked in the bank’s structured finance unit in New Delhi, India, and was part of the Capital Structuring & Advisory team in Amsterdam. He also previously worked for a private equity and venture capital backed financial services / fintech start-up.
Mr van Hulst holds an MBA from INSEAD in France and a Master’s in Management from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has lived, studied and worked in the Netherlands, India, France and Switzerland and speaks / understands Dutch, English, German and French.
T +41 22 818 6301
E rvanhulst@omnibridgeway.com
Michael Rozen is a Founder and co-Managing Partner of TRGP Investment Partners LP, and is responsible for overall corporate management and oversight, deal sourcing, investment selection, portfolio construction, and commercial litigation initiatives. Michael is also a member of TRGP’s Board of Directors, co-Chair of the Board of Human Rights First and member of the Board, New York State Urban Development Corporation. From November 2016 until early 2021 Michael was the Chair of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
Prior to forming TRGP in 2015, Michael was a partner in the renowned boutique law firm Feinberg Rozen, LLP where he was nationally recognized as a leading strategist and negotiator of complex, multi-party disputes. Among many engagements throughout his lengthy legal career, Michael was Deputy Special Master of the United States government’s 09/11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, Deputy Administrator of BP’s Gulf Coast Compensation Fund and outside resolution counsel for Penn State University during the Sandusky sexual assault scandal.
T +1 212 527 9506
E mrozen@trgpcap.com
Neil co-founded Therium in 2008 and is the firm’s Chief Investment Officer. A solicitor with over 22 years’ experience, he was previously Litigation Counsel in-house for Marsh & MacLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC), prior to which he was in practice in the City of London with US firm Reed Smith and Withers. Neil has led investments in litigation and arbitration valued in excess of $15 billion, including many of the largest and most high-profile funded cases in the market. He is also a founding board member of the Association of Litigation Funders, the self-regulatory body for the industry in England and Wales and is regularly invited to speak at conferences and quoted in the media on issues related to the industry. Since it was first published in 2018, Neil has been consistently recognised as a leading individual in the litigation funding industry by Chambers and Partners. He gained an MA in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford in 1995.
T +44 20 3327 3460
E neil.purslow@therium.com
Thomas Kohlmeier isCo-Founder and Co-CEO of SwissFunder Nivalion. Thomas has over 20years’ experience in litigation funding and was a member of the Executive Boardof German Funder Legial AG, partof Munich Re Group. Thomas also sat on the Executive Board of the Federation ofGerman Debt Collecting Firms (BDIU). Before becoming a Funder, he was in private practice specialising inlitigation and appeals risk assessment. Thomas is a law graduate from theUniversity of Regensburg. He is recognised by Who’s Who Legal as a ThoughtLeader in Third Party Funding and by Lawdragon as an outstanding litigationfunder. Thomas speaks German and English.
T +41 41 748 43 00
E thomas.kohlmeier@nivalion.com