Mass Tort Marketer Hires Ex-LexShares CEO to Lead Funding Program

A large mass tort marketing firm has tapped litigation finance veteran Max Doyle to lead a growing program aimed directly at funders.

Consumer Attorney Marketing Group hired Doyle as chief strategy officer, the company said Tuesday. He will focus on expanding its funder program, which CAMG says now accounts for more than half of its business.

Marketers traditionally work for law firms pursuing mass tort and personal injury cases on behalf of millions of people claiming they have been harmed by large companies. Marketers create leads—people who want to join the suits as plaintiffs—by advertising on television, radio, and social media.

CAMG is working directly with litigation funders and pairing them with lawyers to generate leads. It’s a sign that funders have become increasingly intertwined with marketing as they set their sights on mass torts.

The company works with funders to curate investment strategies, according to Doyle, who starts in September. Funders can create their own lists of cases and have more control over how their capital is deployed.

Max Doyle

Consumer Attorney Marketing Group

“I want to be the person who I suppose can speak in that language with the funders or investors or alternative asset managers or hedge funds or whoever it is, but be able to not start off with the law, but start off with the potential returns,” said Doyle.

“Large alternative asset managers have to be efficient in terms of how they invest and they want to manage exposures and get to the bottom of what the risk-adjusted returns look like.” he said. “We want to try and make that a bit easier for them.”

Instead of lending to a law firm on its existing set of cases and spending time finding clients, the funder’s capital is used to create a new docket through advertising with CAMG. The arrangement looks different with every investor but involves an intermediary firm serving as middleman, helping to sign paperwork and accounting and management.

Once cases are acquired, the intermediary will then co-counsel with a separate law firm that does the litigation. The funding is secured against those cases.

Non-Lawyer Ownership

Rules changes in places like Arizona, where non-lawyers can take equity stakes in law firms and split fees with attorneys, offer more options for mass tort investment, according to Doyle. They make it easier to create portfolios of cases for investors.

“It puts investors in a very different position and there’s more clarity over the collateral,” said Doyle. “Funders spend a lot of time ensuring that the collateral is locked down and safe and liens are renewed, so I think there are better ways to structure it.”

Arizona in 2020 became one of a handful of states that eliminated a rule that forbids nonlawyers from owning law firms. Utah and Washington D.C. have also made changes to the rule.

Private equity firms and funders have flocked to Arizona to take advantage of the state’s looser rules on law firm ownership. Mass tort firms in particular have taken to alternative business structures for lead generation and advertisement nationally while allowing outside capital to have an ownership stake in the firms.

California-based CAMG, which says it’s one of the largest mass tort marketers, has been operating in the space for almost 15 years. Along with lead generation, it also handles public relations, medical record retrieval, and intake services.

Money has poured into dockets for Johnson & Johnson talcum powder and Camp Lejeune, inundating airwaves with law firm advertisements. Though many of those torts are in later stages, Steve Nober, founder and CEO of CAMG, says the company is most active in litigation over PFAs water contamination and Monsanto’s weedkiller Round Up. He also sees weight-loss drug Ozempic as the most interesting newer entrant in the space.

“This is a really interesting time for mass torts and let’s not forget it’s probably the last bastion of a consumer’s ability to take on a large company that has caused an injury there,” said Doyle. “There are heartbreaking cases, and as it turns out, it’s also a really interesting place to invest funds.”

The commercial litigation finance industry has experienced growing pains in recent years with firms conducting layoffs during a challenging fundraising environment.

Doyle previously spent a year as CEO of litigation funder LexShares, which recently announced it entered harvest mode after large delays in case resolutions due to the pandemic. He also led North America operations at UK-based funder Augusta Ventures which lost five employees from its investment team to Omni Bridgeway after significant layoffs last year.

Doyle said his move to mass torts was purposeful. He acknowledged some of the tumult in the commercial funding sector.

“It’s harder to raise money, you need a good strategy, a good team, a good track record, and a receptive market,” he said. “If any one of those is out, it’s going to be difficult.”