Litigation finance is a highly technical field with terminology borrowed from finance, law, insurance, and capital markets. Lawyers exploring funding for the first time, law firms evaluating capital products, corporate counsel assessing commercial claims, and institutional investors entering the asset class all encounter the same vocabulary — and the same gaps.
These glossaries are written by Criterica Capital's underwriting team. Each definition explains the concept in context — what it means for case evaluation, capital structure, pricing, or legal procedure. A term like "MOIC" means something different in a litigation finance context than it does in private equity; a term like "bellwether trial" has no analogue outside mass tort litigation. These glossaries capture those distinctions.
The nine glossaries below are organized by practice area. The General Litigation Finance glossary covers core concepts applicable to all products — non-recourse funding, champerty, ILFA standards, warehouse facilities, NAV lending. The practice-specific glossaries cover the specialized vocabulary of pre-settlement funding, law firm capital, IP finance, commercial litigation, mass tort and MDL procedure, employment litigation, and portfolio finance and structured products.
All terms are indexed alphabetically within each glossary. Each glossary page includes a letter-indexed navigation sidebar, and every term has its own page with underwriting context, related terms, and a link to the relevant Capital product.