Litigation Funding Giant Adds Another Ex-Latham Partner to Its Ranks

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Christopher Bogart, CEO of Burford Capital[/caption] Burford Capital Ltd., fresh off robust half-year financials, has hired retired Latham & Watkins senior partner G. Andrew “Andy” Lundberg in Los Angeles, where he will serve as a managing director for the litigation financier. Lundberg, who will turn 61 next week, retired from Latham's partnership in late 2017 after a 35-year career at the global legal giant, where he served as chairman of the firm's Los Angeles litigation and trial department and co-chairman of its insurance coverage litigation practice. After spending some time catching up on his sleep, Lundberg said jokingly, he decided to join Burford, where he will reunite with several former colleagues, friends and mentors from his days at Latham. [caption id="attachment_18955" align="alignright" width="245"]

Andy Lundberg[/caption] “[It's good to] sort of get together with some of the same guys, and kind of try to do the same thing again,” said Lundberg, adding that he’s also excited about the opportunity to help Burford grow its enterprise in the Los Angeles legal market. Lundberg is one of several former Latham partners to have found a home at Burford, following after former senior partners Peter Benzian, Ernest Getto, and Hugh Steven Wilson. Wilson, a former chairman of the litigation and M&A practices at Latham, as well as a former managing partner at private investment firm Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, has served as vice chairman for Burford since its inception. Benzian and Getto, meanwhile, joined the litigation funder as managing directors after their retirements from Latham in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Lundberg joined Latham as an associate in 1982. Before retiring from the firm in November 2017, Lundberg spent 15 years as global co-chairman of Latham's insurance coverage litigation practice and five years as chairman of its Los Angeles litigation department. “We’re delighted to welcome Andy to the Burford team. He brings outstanding experience and perspective to us and our clients,” said a statement from Burford’s CEO Christopher Bogart. “We’re now over 100 people with more than 50 lawyers, among them four former senior Latham & Watkins partners.” As a managing director at Burford and member of its investment committee, Lundberg said he will assist the company in evaluating the opportunities it has to invest in a litigation, as well as work with law firms and corporate clients to assess and manage legal risk, especially in the area of insurance coverage disputes. As an insurance litigator, Lundberg said he was on the plaintiff side of cases for most of his legal career, which gives him a different mindset when evaluating potential cases for Burford. “I am sort of doing what I have done, which is taking a look at a case from the plaintiff’s perspective and coming up with some conclusion, and making some reasonable judgments and recommendations about whether it is a good case to pursue, and whether it is a good case to pursue on certain terms,” he said. Lundberg also had experience litigating cases in state and federal courts nationwide, Burford said in its announcement. Some of his past clients include America Online Inc., Beckman Coulter Inc., Ford Motor Co., GlaxoSmithKline plc, Guthy-Renker LLC, Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, Silicon Valley Bank, Southern California Edison and a number of Fortune 500 companies.