Pera Compiles “A Litigation Funding Checklist” for ABA Law Practice Magazine

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Adams & Reese Partner and leading legal ethics attorney Lucian Pera authored “A Litigation Funding Checklist, published in the March 2025 issue of the American Bar Association (ABA) Law Practice magazine.

Increasingly, lawyers need to be aware of a number of legal and ethical issues arising when either they or their firms use funding, or their clients seek or use funding. A recent New York ethics opinion provides good guidance on the ethics issues for lawyers obtaining litigation funding or whose clients are seeking funding.

“For more than two decades, using other people’s money to litigate – called litigation funding or litigation finance – has been a growing part of the landscape. It’s one of several economic forces or trends that have reshaped the delivery of legal services in the United States,” writes Pera.

In his article, Pera discusses the various forms of litigation funding, recent statutes and regulations, disclosure rules, conflicts of interest, fee-sharing, confidentiality, settlement and control, and champerty and maintenance.

At Adams & Reese, Pera is a Partner in the Memphis office. His practice includes legal ethics, media law, and commercial litigation. He represents lawyers, law firms, and others on issues of legal ethics and lawyer professional responsibility.

A graduate of Princeton University and Vanderbilt University School of Law, Pera was a member of the ABA “Ethics 2000” Commission, which rewrote the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. He chaired the Tennessee Bar Association committee whose work led to the adoption of significantly revised Tennessee ethics rules patterned after the Model Rules. He has chaired the editorial board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers’ Manual on Professional Conduct and served as President of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. He served for three years as chair of the governing board of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility.

The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility bestowed upon Pera the Michael Franck Award, their highest award for work in the field of ethics and professional responsibility. Pera is a past Treasurer of the ABA and a past President of the Tennessee Bar Association. He currently serves as a member of the ABA Board of Governors representing the Section of Business Law.