Alternative assets have become popular in recent years, mainly because they offer superior returns and are uncorrelated to traditional markets. Legal finance also called lawsuit funding, lawsuit loans, pre-settlement funding, tort advances, plaintiff advances, litigation finance, litigation financing, litigation funding or dispute finance refers to investments in lawsuits. Written by a renowned expert, this book is essential reading for investors, consumers, lawyers, policymakers, business executives, and anyone who can benefit from having a clear and comprehensive framework for understanding this industry and its capacity to create more balanced and provident legal systems around the world. Join us as we explore this new market and examine the industry s most poignant issues.

"This current and important book discusses the need for investment that directly addresses social, economic, and racial inequities. Written by practice leaders, this guide provides an understanding of the latest U.S. private and public investment strategies and offers legal tools and checklists created by lawyers and practitioners serving both investors and investees." --

The complexity of the access to justice issue lies in part in this intersection of the economics of justice on the one hand and the fact that access to justice is a fundamentally human problem. [...] An understanding of the methods used to determine the monetary, economic, social and other benefits of access to justice, and an examination of the extent of those benefits, lay the framework for a broader discussion of equal access to justice that includes the benefits that access to justice offers justice system users as well as the benefits to investors and facilitators of justice. [...] Part 3: Economic Impacts of Access to Civil Legal Aid Services | 16 For this study, the monetary value of the return on investment in civil legal aid programs was derived from an assessment of the following factors: the number of cases closed, the type of outcome achieved for each case, the financial value of the amounts clients received after resolving their legal problem, the duration of the ben [...] The findings from the third New York case study in the 2012 collection of studies is rooted in a case for more spending on civil justice services in order to reduce the burden on the courts, help address the justice gap and improve the lives of everyone living in the State. [...] In North Carolina, the corresponding percentage is 28.4%.52 The cost of evictions and foreclosures to the state, communities and to individuals is a common focus of discussions on the economic impacts of Part 3: Economic Impacts of Access to Civil Legal Aid Services | 19 civil justice and the return on investment in civil legal aid.

Before the 99% occupied Wall Street... Before the concept of social justice had impinged on the social conscience... Before the social safety net had even been conceived... By the turn of the 20th Century, the era of the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had already accumulated a staggeringly large fortune; he was one of the wealthiest people on the globe. He guaranteed his position as one of the wealthiest men ever when he sold his steel business to create the United States Steel Corporation. Following that sale, he spent his last 18 years, he gave away nearly 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, and universities. His charitable efforts actually started far earlier. At the age of 33, he wrote a memo to himself, noting ..".The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In 1881, he gave a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1889, he spelled out his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society, in an article called "The Gospel of Wealth" this book. Carnegie writes that the best way of dealing with wealth inequality is for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor. Though written more than a century ago, Carnegie's words still ring true today, urging a better, more equitable world through greater social consciousness.

This text shows that citizens can change the globalized world in the direction of many common values by being a socially conscious investor. The authors argue that in fact globalization is helping create a shared concern for many issues around the planet.

School is one of the most focal institutions in modern society. It is largely through the institutionalized forms of education that modern society attempts to secure and maintain its social and economic well-being and its valuable cultural life forms. In addition to this, school is the essential institution through which the future of a society is defined. Thus, at least when understood traditionally as a pedagogical institution, the school stands at the center of historically and socially constructed cultural life forms and at the brink of an unknown future: the determination of that future characterizes the pedagogical task of the school. It naturally ensues then, that modern discourses of the school have always been intertwined with the critical question of how past, present and future can be linked in educational practices so that schools can foster (in ever better ways) the well-being of individuals, societies and humanity. The chapters in this volume, despite the variety of viewpoints, share this critical view. The purpose of the volume is not to offer definite answers; rather it is to stress that to understand the role and functions of school in contemporary society and to orientate its transition, a well-founded critical evaluation of prevailing pedagogical practices and policy trends is required. This evaluation is vital for the future of school and society.