ORIGINATOR PROFILE

Bench Walk Advisors

Bench Walk Advisors LLC (BW) is a litigation finance company with offices in London, New York, and Delaware. BW is jointly managed by Stuart Grant, a highly-successful litigator with more than 30 years’ litigation experience, and Adrian Chopin, a former derivatives investment banker with extensive experience of structuring, modelling and analyzing complex financial transactions. To date, Bench Walk has committed in excess of $385M.

The team comprises experts in legal practice, investment banking and insurance to provide innovative legal financing solutions and rigorous due diligence on each investment. BW ensures that each case is carefully reviewed by both legal and financial specialists to ensure that both the prospects of winning or settling the underlying claim(s) and the financial merits of the relevant proposition offer good risk-adjusted returns and, where relevant, appropriate diversification. For each investment, BW also deploys its proprietary models to simulate outcomes in a wide range of scenarios, ensuring a more informed decision-making process.

Deal Sourcing & Underwriting

BW’s goal is to gain a thorough understanding of a law firm prior to underwriting its legal cases, including understanding the firm’s general operations, legal practice and financials. The information gathered during this stage forms the basis of how the legal cases are underwritten. The legal case underwriting process is conducted by BW’s team of former trial attorneys and includes:

  • A review of the historical performance in similar type legal cases
  • An examination of underlying legal case documentation to establish the facts
  • A series of conversations with the applicable attorneys to hear their view and understanding of the legal cases
  • A search for the latest updates and motions pertaining to the legal cases
  • Any and all independent research required by BW to form an opinion on the case’s chance of prevailing
  • An estimate of expected time to settlement / verdict, probability of settlement /win and revenue sizes

With both stages of the BW’s review complete, a full picture of a prospective borrower is formed and a decision to extend credit is made.

Principals

Stuart Grant

Stuart M. Grant is a Managing Director of Bench Walk Advisors and an internationally recognized business leader, litigator and legal investor. Prior to founding Bench Walk Advisors, he co-founded and served as Managing Director of Grant & Eisenhofer P.A., which grew under his leadership and capital investment into one of the world’s most formidable plaintiff advocacy firms. He retired from Grant & Eisenhofer in late 2018 to devote his professional time to BWA.

Prior to founding Grant & Eisenhofer, Mr. Grant served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Grant was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and a partner in the Wilmington office of Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley. Mr. Grant received his B.A. cum laude in economics from Brandeis University in 1982, and his J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 1986.

Adrian Chopin

Adrian is a Managing Director, leading Bench Walk Advisors’ London office. Combining a background in banking and law, Adrian has a reputation as a creative and deal-oriented individual, having funded more than 200 individual commercial cases during his career in litigation funding. Prior to joining Bench Walk, Adrian founded a new litigation funding business for a large hedge fund, which he built into a market-leading, highly profitable and well-diversified business of over $100 million in under two years. Before entering the litigation funding market, Adrian was head of the Debt & Equity Solutions Group for Deutsche Bank, New York, where he ran a large number of ground-breaking structured finance and regulatory capital transactions.

Adrian began his career at Magic Circle law firm Allen & Overy in London. Adrian has authored a series of articles on the structuring, pricing and risk analysis of litigation funding transactions. Adrian holds a first class degree in Law and German Law from the University of Nottingham where he graduated top of his class and won various academic prizes.