The International Legal Finance Association, the industry’s trade body, opposes forced disclosure on four grounds: it would expose litigants’ legal strategy; it would “tilt the legal system toward the biggest corporate players”; courts already have authority to order disclosure when relevant, and in “the overwhelming majority of cases” have found funding agreements irrelevant to the merits; and the real beneficiaries would be “Big Tech” and “Big Insurance” defendants. ILFA statement ↗
Three of those four points are fair. Litigation finance does let inventors and small businesses sue companies that can outspend them; the loudest voices for disclosure include the companies most often sued; and a blanket public-disclosure rule could hand defendants a strategic map. Reps. Massie and Roy made a version of this argument from the right in January 2026, and America First Legal’s objection to S. 3826 — that disclosure could be used to unmask the donors of nonprofit plaintiffs — is a concern any civil-liberties organization should take seriously.
Where the argument fails is the fourth point. “Courts already can order it” describes a remedy that requires the defendant to know enough to ask, and a judge inclined to grant. In a speech case, the funder’s identity is not a discovery footnote — it is the difference between a plaintiff repairing a reputation and a stranger buying a silence. Disclosure to the court, under seal where warranted, with the judge deciding what the parties see, answers the strategy objection and the donor-privacy objection at once. That is the coalition’s position.
