The proliferation of litigation funding in the U.S. has extended to civil rights claims brought by the wrongly convicted. Some funders are willing to provide exonerees as much as $1 million in upfront cash. Recently, Chicago-based exoneree Charles Johnson received $226,000 from Illinois after serving 22 years for a crime he didn’t commit. With funding from Validity Capital (at their cost of capital) and represented by his lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis, he was able to successfully sue the City of Chicago and its police department in 2018.
