Most Americans agree that our legal system is wildly out of control. An abundance of plaintiffs’ lawyers continue filling up court dockets with costly and unnecessary litigation that only serves to burden our economy, inflate the cost of goods and services, and line the pockets of silk-stocking law firms with huge cash payouts.

Of course people who suffer real damage or injury need competent legal representation, but legitimate plaintiff injury cases now seem to be the exception rather than the norm in the current litigation explosion.

Now the curtain has been pulled back even further on the legal profession’s land of Oz wizardry, and the scene is fairly shocking. In an ongoing case in Texas, a financier is suing the law firm of AkinMears for more than $4 million in unpaid commissions for helping broker a $100 million purchase of bundled lawsuits in a practice known as ‘litigation finance.’ And yes, it is as bad as it sounds, if not worse.

Litigation finance essentially takes aggregated legal claims from thousands of plaintiffs and bundles them for sale to the highest bidder, which in this case is AkinMears.  The now disgruntled financier, Amir Sheaq, raised the $100 million from investors seeking a return on their money, while the plaintiffs themselves were traded like pork bellies on a commodities exchange.

On top of all the excesses of the legal industry, the last thing that’s needed is the growth of litigation finance and claim aggregation, which creates a financial incentive to expand litigation nationwide so lawyers and their financiers can get the biggest possible payday.

This despicable practice does little for actual plaintiffs, many of whom are encouraged to join in a lawsuit as leverage. Seniors and all potential victims deserve better than to be bought and sold while back room wheeler-dealers cut up a lawsuit payout like a dessert pie. The scales of justice in our legal system need to be re-balanced in favor of taxpayers and consumers, who ultimately bear the cost of plaintiff lawyers’ greed by receiving less than they deserve in lawsuits. Meanwhile we all pay the added cost of goods and services, and higher taxes due to increased costs in the public sector. Justice should start by ending this horrific practice of treating legal cases as lottery tickets for shady law firms and their high-finance lenders.