When an ordinary American takes on a woke corporate giant or powerful institution in court, the question isn’t always just who’s right — it’s who can afford to fight. In today’s legal system, staying power comes from financial resources, not just conviction or correctness. And that imbalance has muzzled countless Americans seeking to challenge the assault on their freedoms.

Conservatives should oppose lawfare and seek major changes to bring back justice to our judicial system — but we should not confuse it with the very tool that helps citizens fight back. In a report I recently published, I explain how third-party litigation finance (TPLF) is one of the few remaining mechanisms that allows ordinary citizens to take powerful woke corporations, institutions, and government bureaucrats to court on a level playing field. The prevalence of lawfare is exactly what makes this tool indispensable.

Over the past decade, the Left has turned the legal system into a political weapon. Their activists flood courts with suits designed to punish conservative speech, religious liberty, and parental rights. Meanwhile, conservative causes — whether challenging DEI mandates, ESG policies, or Big Tech censorship — often falter because plaintiffs can’t afford the long, expensive battle that follows. Rights on paper mean little without the resources to enforce them.

Conservative nonprofits fight valiantly, but they can’t do everything. Litigation finance can help fill that gap. It provides non-recourse capital from investors who have conducted rigorous due diligence and concluded that a claim has real merit. The plaintiff — a conservative activist, a small business owner, or an everyday American whose rights have been trampled — risks nothing beyond the claim itself. The funder assumes the financial risk in exchange for a negotiated share of any recovery. This structure is revolutionary for meritorious cases that would otherwise die on the vine because the plaintiff cannot outlast deep-pocketed opponents who treat litigation as a war of attrition. Like contingency fees, litigation finance doesn’t manufacture lawsuits; it makes viable ones possible that would otherwise never see the light of day.

For conservatives, this is critical. It can fund lawsuits against woke corporations enforcing DEI mandates, challenges to Big Tech viewpoint discrimination, election-integrity litigation, and defenses or counterclaims against the Left’s lawfare machine. Market discipline keeps this system honest. Serious funders back strong cases and avoid frivolous ones because repeated losses would be financial suicide.

Lawfare is about weaponizing process to punish opponents regardless of merit. Litigation finance, by contrast, depends on the system working fairly. One abuses the law; the other enforces it.

At the very moment conservatives should be embracing this equalizer, some in Washington are trying to strangle it. The Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026 and the Protecting TPLF From Abuse Act would force parties to broadly disclose their funding arrangements — a move that would hand corporate defendants a strategic advantage before the first motion is filed. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), meanwhile, is pushing a punitive tax proposal designed to make litigation finance economically unviable. Even state legislatures in Tennessee and Missouri, among others, have introduced similar proposals to sharply restrict litigation finance.

These measures would not deter lawfare. They would bolster the very corporations pushing progressive social agendas by choking off the capital that allows conservatives to challenge them. Instead of empowering Americans to fight back, these bills would ensure that only the wealthy and well-connected can afford to litigate.

Conservatives should, of course, guard against genuine national security risks. No one wants foreign adversaries such as China or Russia using our courts to advance their interests. But that risk is narrow and manageable. A straightforward prohibition on funding from foreign adversaries, with strict enforcement, would block bad actors without undermining the entire system. The answer to potential foreign infiltration of litigation finance isn’t to cripple American access to justice; it’s to keep the market clean, so American plaintiffs can continue holding powerful corporations and institutions accountable.

If these punitive measures advance in their current forms, conservative lawmakers will have helped dismantle one of the few tools that can actually help their voters. The small business owner fighting discriminatory corporate practices, the church defending its religious liberty, and the parent challenging school censorship will all be left effectively defenseless unless they are independently wealthy or have the backing of a strong conservative legal organization. And woke corporations enjoy even more insulation from accountability.

Conservative lawmakers and leaders should be leading the charge in the opposite direction. Litigation finance is a pro-family, pro-small business, pro-rule-of-law innovation that restores fairness to the courtroom. They should defend it against overbroad disclosure mandates and punitive taxes, while enacting a narrow foreign adversary ban to keep the system clean.

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Gene Hamilton is the President and Co-Founder of America First Legal and former Deputy White House Counsel to President Donald Trump.

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Conservatives Can Fight Leftist Lawfare With Litigation Finance