Law's Financialization: Litigation Finance and Multilayer Access to Justice in Canada

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, states around the world have experienced sustained growth in the emerging industry of litigation finance in light of the perceived insularity of courtrooms from the instabilities and fluctuations of financial markets. In Canada, this nascent industry has been dominated by class actions given the high costs, risk exposures, and attractive rewards associated with collective redress. Such investments have been legitimated as promoting access to justice, a fundamental human right. This paper traces the historical and contemporary development of this legal dynamic of financialization by documenting the progressive liberalization of maintenance and champerty laws from the nineteenth century to the current period through a series of case studies, before exploring the legal economics of the emerging industry in Canada. In so doing, this paper critically examines the impacts of law's financialization on multilayer access to justice.