The illegal practice of a lawyer or other third party funding or conducting a lawsuit in exchange for a share of the winnings or judgment.
From Old French 'champart' (a share of crops or land) applied to law, the term transferred the concept of profit-sharing in agriculture to profit-sharing in litigation, creating this legal term.
Champerty is so ancient that it's mentioned in English law going back to the 1200s—it's basically the original version of modern lawsuit financing schemes, which shows humans have been trying to profit from other people's legal troubles for almost a thousand years!
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