Christopher Hagale, managing director at Lake Whillans. (Courtesy Photo)

The litigation finance outfit Lake Whillans has hired former Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott litigator Christopher Hagale as a managing director. Hagale brings expertise in accounting malpractice and trade secrets, and expands Lake Whillans' geographic footprint to the Midwest.

The hire is the latest by Lake Whillans since it closed a $125 million fund raise in January. The company has been growing slowly but steadily. Last April, it hired Garrett Ordower, a former associate from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, who is at the company's New York office.

In an interview Tuesday, Hagale noted that he and Ordower worked on the University of Chicago Law Review together during law school, and said he had grown interested in Lake Whillans and litigation finance generally through conversations with his former classmate.

“My favorite parts of practicing law were sitting in a group and discussing cases, discussing the narratives,” Hagale said. “That's a big part of practicing law, but that's obviously not all of it. In litigation finance, that's everyday … it's just constant critical analysis.”

Hagale started working with Lake Whillans on April 16, after practicing law at Bartlit Beck since September 2011. He is the first hire at Lake Whillans to come from a law firm partner position.

“I think the fact that Chris had a great and burgeoning career at a top firm and was still interested in making the move to our platform … says something about the [litigation finance] industry and where it's headed, and hopefully says something good about our platform,” said Lake Whillans co-founder Lee Drucker.

Hagale was a football coach in Texas prior to working at Bartlit Beck, and clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. in New Orleans after attending law school.

Hagale is currently based in Chicago but will be relocating in the coming months to Columbus, Ohio, he said. That will make him the company's only Midwest-based director. Lake Whillans currently has offices in New York and Silicon Valley.

While stressing that Lake Whillans is already able to do deals around the country, Drucker said the company was happy to add greater “geographic diversity” to the company. Hagale “brings to the organization real grounding in Chicago and the Midwest, and hopefully greater context that we didn't have before,” Drucker added.