Litigation finance is where a nonparty funds a plaintiff's lawsuit in exchange for an interest in the recovery. Some recent estimates place the size of the litigation finance market at over $100 billion. This burgeoning industry has allowed for greater flexibility in how individuals, businesses and law firms approach litigation.

The increased use of litigation funding has resulted in more demand for disclosure of documents and communications concerning litigation funding arrangements. Such demands typically come from deep-pocketed litigants who seek to deplete a party's funds by requesting funding discovery that is irrelevant to the claims or defenses in the litigation. This article examines recent cases concerning litigation finance discovery requests, which more often than not are rejected on relevancy grounds.

For example, in In re Valsartan N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) Contamination Prod. Liab. Litig., 405 F. Supp. 3d 612 (D.N.J. 2019), the defendants sought discovery on whether the plaintiffs were backed by litigation funders, the details of the funding, and communications and documents regarding the funding. The plaintiffs objected to the discovery requests, although they agreed to produce certain discovery for in camera review.