I often preface talks and articles about law and lawyering with something about how we lawyers are a creative bunch, and when we set out to do good, we do a lot of good, but when we go off the tracks, watch out world! That’s exactly what I thought when I read about a new tech startup called Ryval. It’s a platform that plans to sell digital shares in lawsuits. It’s kind of like litigation financing, but on steroids. Lots of steroids. The projected returns on investment are huge.

When I began law school, almost 50 years ago, there was this quaint idea that courts were sacred places where high-minded people applied serious principles to hard problems in an attempt to do justice. It seemed to occupy a place above the usual hugger-mugger of the marketplace. Many of the foundational materials for what eventually became our ethics rules arose out of such ideas. Thus was born the slogan “we’re a profession, not a business.” I kinda liked that.