This is generally no longer so[5] as, during the nineteenth century, the development of legal ethics tended to obviate the risks to the public, particularly after the scandal of the Swynfen will case (1856–1864).
[6] However, the principles are relevant to modern contingent fee agreements between a lawyer and a client and to the assignment by a plaintiff of his rights in a lawsuit to someone with no connection to the case.
Champertous contracts, such as third-party litigation funding agreements, can still, depending on jurisdiction, be void for public policy or attract liability for costs.
Unscrupulous nobles and royal officials would lend their names to bolster the credibility of doubtful and fraudulent claims in return for a share of the property recovered.
[9] Judicial independence was gradually established, however, and by the early 19th century Jeremy Bentham wrote:[10] A mischief, in those times it seems but too common, though a mischief not to be cured by such laws, was, that a man would buy a weak claim, in hopes that power might convert it into a strong one, and that the sword of a baron, stalking into court with a rabble of retainers at his heels, might strike terror into the eyes of a judge upon the bench.
In Hong Kong, champerty and maintenance were long thought to be obsolete both as a crime and a tort, but these two principles have been revived in recent years in response to the prevalence of recovery agents which present problems quite different from the mischief which historically these rules intended to combat.
The recovery agents typically perform "ambulance chasing" on accident victims, offering to arrange lawyers to handle their claims on a "no win no fee" basis.
She was found to have agreed to share 25% from the damages paid to the next friend of an 18-year-old traffic accident victim who suffered from permanent total loss of earning capacity.
The Reasons for Judgment, published on 23 February 2012, stated that there is a serious problem with the finding made and endorsed by the trial judge and the Court of Appeal respectively that Lo knew that there had been champerty involved.
[24][25] In 2016, the High Court ruled that such third-party funding constituted champerty prohibited by the 1634 act; Persona said it would have to drop the case, being unable to afford the €10m expenses.
[28] In NAACP v. Button, laws that overburden free speech rights in the name of preventing champerty were found to be unconstitutional.