By any measure, Los Angeles County’s April 2025 sex‑abuse settlement, roughly $4 billion to resolve thousands of claims tied to county‑run facilities, was historic. It also triggered something else: a full‑scale bidding war for future plaintiffs, fueled by private investors who see mass litigation as an “evergreen” asset class. The resulting ad blitz, blanketing YouTube, radio, and social feeds across southern California, raises hard questions about who profits when public dollars meet private finance in the name of justice. The Los Angeles Times had the story: 

The April settlement is under investigation by the L.A. County district attorney office following Times reporting that found plaintiffs who said they were paid by recruiters to join the litigation, including some who said they filed fraudulent claims. All were represented by Downtown LA Law Group, which handled roughly 2,700 plaintiffs.

Downtown LA Law Group has denied all wrongdoing and said it “only wants justice for real victims.” The firm took out a bank loan in summer 2024, according to a financing statement, but a spokesperson said they had no investor financing.

The financing deals have raised alarms among lawmakers, who say they want to know what portion of the billions poised to be diverted from government services to victims of horrific sex abuse will go to opaque private investors.

“I’m getting calls from the East Coast asking me if people should invest in bankrupting L.A. County,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said. “I understand people want to make money, but I feel like this is so predatory.”

The bottom line is litigation finance isn’t inherently predatory, and for many survivors, it’s the bridge to accountability. But when taxpayer money, opaque capital, and mass‑market client recruitment collide, the system can veer from justice to extraction. L.A. County is the stress test the country can’t ignore. The task now is to keep the doors to the courthouse open for real victims while closing the loopholes that let private players turn public trauma into a perpetual yield product.

Justice requires both resources and restraint, and cannot be commodified. If we fail to balance them, the people who pay will be survivors and the public. It’s time for reform in California.