Fund the Auditor
For Attorneys

Civil Rights Litigation Finance —
The Attorney Capital Partner.

You see which cases would settle. You have watched auditors walk out of consultations because they could not sustain themselves long enough to file. Bar association rules prevent you from filling the gap directly. Passive investment in a funding entity that operates independently of your practice is the clean path.

The Gap You Already Know

The cases are there. The capital isn't.

Legal documents on a dark desk surface

Civil rights attorneys understand the funding gap better than anyone else in this ecosystem. You see the auditors who have documented violations on camera — clean, unambiguous, settleable — and who cannot pursue the case because 18 months of living expenses is not something a contingency arrangement can front at the pre-filing stage.

The mechanism this model uses is not novel. The full model structure you would be investing in is litigation finance applied specifically to First Amendment auditing — where on-camera evidence provides the binary verification that makes performance-only funding viable. What is novel is the application. And the most obvious people to fund this application are the people who identified the gap: civil rights attorneys.

Why this model produces outcomes that moral arguments don't examines the historical record of financial leverage as an institutional change mechanism. The short version: institutions do not change because someone made a compelling argument. They change when the wrong behavior costs more than the right behavior. This model builds that cost systematically.

The Clean Structure

Passive investment. Fully hands off.

A civil rights attorney invests passively in the funding entity as a capital partner taking returns like any investor — provided a clean set of conditions are met and maintained throughout the relationship. The conditions are not aspirational guidelines. They are the structural requirements that keep the investment legal and the ethics wall intact.

Attorney capital partners do
  • Invest capital passively in the funding entity
  • Hold an equity position reflecting their investment
  • Take financial returns from settlement proceeds
  • Advise on which complex cases receive the 10% tithe allocation — strictly limited to that advisory role
  • Remain mission-aligned without crossing bar ethical lines
Attorney capital partners do not
  • Direct which cases get funded
  • Select or recruit auditors
  • Advise auditors on legal strategy
  • Have any operational control over the funding entity
  • Maintain any attorney-client relationship with the auditors

The wall between the attorney's passive investment function and the operational auditing side is documented and maintained. Their motivation is mission alignment plus financial return. Their legal knowledge identified the gap. The entity fills it. They profit from the model without crossing bar association ethical lines.

Non-negotiable prerequisite: the ethics opinion

A formal ethics opinion from bar counsel is required before structuring any attorney investment in a litigation finance entity. This is not optional, and it is not a step that can be completed after the structure is in place. Bar rules on passive investment in litigation finance entities vary significantly by state. What is clean in one jurisdiction may constitute impermissible champerty, barratry, or fee-sharing in another.

Get the opinion in writing before any capital moves. The structure described on this page is intended to be ethics-compliant — but the specific language of your state's rules governs, and your bar counsel's opinion is the authoritative determination, not this site.

⚠   Do not skip this step. Do not defer it. Get the written ethics opinion before any investment commitment is made.
The Advisory Role

One limited function beyond passive investment.

Attorney capital partners have one advisory function that goes beyond passive investment: they serve on the advisory board that determines which complex civil rights cases receive the fund's 10% tithe allocation. This advisory role is strictly bounded.

The tithe advisory board structure

Ten percent of every fund's net profits is committed to financing civil rights cases that meet a standard of genuine merit but do not attract standard contingency representation — no camera evidence, contested facts, jurisdictions that fight everything. The easy cases fund the hard ones.

Attorney capital partners advise on which complex cases merit the allocation. Their legal expertise, which identified the gap in the first place, is exactly the qualification this role requires. Their financial stake in the fund is the alignment mechanism that ensures their judgment is sound.

This advisory role is strictly limited. Advisory board members do not direct auditor operations. They do not select or recruit auditors. They do not advise auditors on legal strategy. The wall between the advisory function and the operational side is the same wall required by the passive investment structure — and it is maintained the same way: documented, deliberate, and consistent.

See the full tithe structure at the advisory board structure for the 10% complex-case tithe.

⚠   The ethics opinion required before investment should specifically address the advisory board structure. Get it covered in the same opinion — not as an afterthought.
Who Participates

Attorneys are the natural capital partner. They are not the only one.

The attorney capital partner structure is the cleanest path for civil rights practitioners who want to translate their knowledge of the gap into financial participation. But attorneys are not the only investors this model accommodates.

Non-attorney investors — individuals and entities with capital and mission alignment who are not subject to bar association rules — can participate as straightforward equity investors without the ethics wall requirements. The structure is simpler; the role is the same. Non-attorney investors who want returns from accountability have a dedicated entry point into the model.

A fund with both attorney and non-attorney capital partners benefits from both: the attorney partner's legal knowledge of what cases are worth funding, and the non-attorney investor's capital that does not carry bar association compliance overhead. The MVP structure — one attorney investor, one proven auditor, one clean settlement — is the minimum proof-of-concept. The full model accommodates both types of capital from the start.

Ready to participate

Connect with a fund operator.

Submit your information as an attorney capital partner. We will connect you with fund operators in your jurisdiction who are building the structure and need legal expertise and mission-aligned capital.

Register Your Interest Read the Full Model
Attorney Questions

What attorneys ask before investing.

Yes — as passive investors, with the required ethics opinion in hand. Litigation finance investment is distinct from the solicitation and bankrolling of litigation that champerty and barratry rules prohibit. A civil rights attorney who invests passively in a funding entity — without directing which cases get funded, without selecting auditors, without advising auditors on legal strategy — is not funding litigation. They are investing in a business entity that operates independently.

The specific rules in your jurisdiction govern. A written ethics opinion from bar counsel is the required first step, and it is non-negotiable.

Passive means no operational involvement. You do not direct which cases receive funding. You do not select or recruit auditors. You do not advise auditors on legal strategy. You do not maintain any attorney-client relationship with the auditors. You hold an equity position in the entity, you receive returns from settlement proceeds, and you advise on which complex cases receive the 10% tithe allocation — and that is the full scope of your involvement.

The wall between your investment function and the operational auditing side is documented and maintained. Any deviation from this structure should be flagged to bar counsel immediately.

A formal written ethics opinion from bar counsel — either your state bar's ethics hotline or a qualified outside ethics attorney — covering the specific structure of your passive investment in the funding entity. The opinion should address: whether the investment constitutes impermissible champerty or barratry under your state's rules; whether fee-sharing rules apply; and whether the advisory board role (advising on the 10% tithe allocation) creates any additional compliance obligations.

Get this opinion before any capital moves and before any equity agreement is signed. The opinion should be in writing and specific to your jurisdiction and the structure as you have described it.

The advisory board role is limited to advising on which complex civil rights cases receive the fund's 10% tithe allocation. Attorney capital partners review cases submitted for consideration, apply their legal expertise to assess merit, and recommend where the capital goes. They do not advise auditors on active cases, do not direct the fund's operational decisions, and do not control which violations are pursued.

Whether this advisory role creates compliance obligations depends on your state's rules. Your ethics opinion should specifically address it — which is why the opinion must be obtained before the structure is in place, not after. See the advisory board structure for the 10% tithe for the full scope of the role.

Attorney capital partners hold an equity position in the funding entity reflecting their investment. Returns are paid from settlement proceeds: the auditor advance is recovered first, then the entity takes its negotiated percentage of net proceeds, and that percentage is distributed to investors — including attorney capital partners — in proportion to their equity stake. The return structure is documented before any capital is deployed, and it is transparent to all parties.

Ten percent of net profits is directed to the tithe fund for complex case allocation — this is a structural commitment built into the model, not a discretionary expense. It applies before investor returns are calculated.

Legal notice: Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice or creates an attorney-client relationship. The passive investment structure described here requires a formal written ethics opinion from bar counsel before implementation. Bar rules vary by state; what is described here is a general framework, not a jurisdiction-specific compliance determination. Consult qualified ethics counsel before any investment commitment.