A new firm with links to the hero behind Gawker Media’s demise, Peter Thiel, wants to (without irony) make it easier for people and firms to sue others by providing a litigation financing service that uses big data to make decisions.

Litigation financing is where a third party provides capital to a plaintiff involved in litigation in return for some financial recovery from the lawsuit, in theory leveling the playing field in litigation by allowing plaintiffs to access the capital necessary for legal fees, growth, and operations before the case is resolved.

Co-founded by Eva Shang using a $100,000 grant from the Thiel Foundation, Legalist Inc. differs from a traditional litigation financing firm in that, instead of manually reviewing the credibility of an applicant for finance, it instead uses big data algorithms to trawl tens of millions of past court cases to accurately and efficiently assess litigation risk, allowing them to make faster decisions on which cases to back.

The idea is that by using historical lawsuit data, the outcome of a lawsuit can be predicted, allowing Legalist to ensure big financial returns for cases it algorithms decides it should finance.

“One of the biggest predictors of case outcome is the presiding judge and one of the biggest predictors of length is the number of cases that judge is concurrently working on,” Shang told Silicon Valley Business Journal.

“We realized what a great opportunity this is to use our data to help small companies and people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to litigate their cases,” she added.

Ethical

Naturally the links Legalist has to Peter Thiel following the heroic takedown of Gawker Media have been grabbing much of the headlines relating to the company. However, Shang claims that they want to be the champion of the little guy, telling The Guardian the company was funding “limited cases” at the moment and that the business had philanthropic aims.

“I used to work for a public defender in DC,” she noted. “We’re not funding criminal cases, nor would I be funding any suits against the media. I think people have the wrong idea about money in litigation … Litigation today is messed up and favors people who have money. Litigation financing levels the playing field.”

In addition to the support from the Thiel Foundation, Legalist is also backed by a $120,000 seed round from startup incubator Y Combinator.

Image credit: Legalist