July 17, 2018
The son of an immigrant and a public-school teacher, Validity Executive Investment Officer Ralph Sutton cares about inequality in our society.
Following his graduation from Columbia University and New York University School of Law — and two years of clerking for a federal judge — Ralph pursued his passion, practicing law for 18 years as a trial lawyer at several boutique firms.
Those experiences resolve to make our legal system more efficient and accessible. In 2006, Ralph co-founded Credit Suisse's Litigation Risk Strategies group, introducing innovative funding to a top Wall Street investment bank, the first litigation finance group in the U.S.
A few years and many successful transactions later, became Bentham IMF’s first U.S. chief investment officer. He soon built offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston. He was one of the chief architects behind Bentham’s successful expansion and growth in the United States, overseeing investment in more than 40 cases.
During his time at Bentham, Ralph innovated and simplified funding solutions that are now commonplace, including litigation portfolios as collateral for working capital. His experience in litigation served him well as he guided the company’s strategy and helped shape the early stages of litigation funding in the U.S.
Ralph was dismayed by a World Justice Project report that ranked the United States 96th globally in terms of civil justice accessibility and affordability, tied with Zambia, Uganda and Cameroon. Watching the rising costs of litigation, Ralph saw litigation finance as one tool in the tool box of solutions to this problem facing our civil justice system.
Driven by a pursuit of systematic fairness and a determination to focus on improving the system, Ralph launched Validity with a vision to prioritize the client’s needs. That means fair terms, clear contracts, strategic advice and responsiveness.
Fairness underpins every aspect of Validity — from simple term sheets with no embedded costs to Plain-English contracts that fully set out client and counsel’s rights and obligations. Integral to Ralph’s philosophy is that a more open business model will reap benefits not just to Validity, but also to the entire funding industry.
Now with nearly 30 years of legal experience and a strong reputation as an advocate for access to the courts, Ralph Sutton is well established as a trusted advisor to both clients and law firms looking to innovate dispute resolution.
