Too often, legal departments are on their heels defending litigation and managing unwieldy litigation budgets. Legal departments can generate an ROI for their companies by engaging in affirmative litigation. But who has the budget for that?

At 20 years old, Eva Shang figured out how to turn litigation into investment returns and is now running a tech-enabled investment firm focused on litigation funding. Legalist, the company she co-founded with Christian Haigh at Y Combinator, now manages $1.5 billion in alternative investments in litigation funding, bankruptcy, and government receivables. In this episode, Eva, now the firm's CEO, shares how litigation funding works, how Legalist's "truffle sniffer" technology sources litigation cases for her team of in-house attorneys to underwrite and evaluate for investment. Eva shares insights on how to evaluate cases and "pick a winner", how to get litigation counsel to set and stick to a budget, and how her team that a "win" will be collectable at the end of the day.

And as a bonus, Eva shares insights of what the CEO wants from their lawyers. Turns out, mitigating risk isn't at the top of the list.