On the latest episode of the Alternative Litigation Strategies podcast, I had the privilege to sit down with Paul Kong, Executive Director of the International Legal Finance Association, and Eric Schuller, President of the Alliance for Responsible Consumer Legal Funding, to talk through a regulatory landscape that is moving fast in both Washington D.C. and the states. We discussed why conflating consumer legal funding with commercial litigation finance leads to bad legislation, the Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026, the parallel push to amend Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 through the Judicial Conference, the fight over the proposed 41% tax on funder profits, what is and isn't a real national security concern around foreign funding, how the industry is trying to keep a 50-state patchwork coherent, and what Paul and Eric expect over the next 12 to 18 months. For anyone in the litigation finance industry you don't want to miss this episode!

Video segments:

• 0:00 – 9:07: The Current State of Affairs in Consumer and Commercial Finance
• 9:14-12:56: Federal Front – Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026
• 12:57-17:22: The Courts vs. Congress – FRCP Rule 26
• 17:23-22:12: The Tax Fight
• 22:13-26:22: National Security & Foreign Funding
• 26:23-33:13: The Wave of State Laws
• 38:30-45:52: What to Expect in the Next 12-18 Months