Law360 (June 3, 2025, 3:53 PM EDT) — A pair of Houston-based former BigLaw trial attorneys have teamed up to form Signal Peak Partners LLC, a litigation funding company with a focus on domestic and international commercial and patent litigation.
Co-founded by Lauren J. Harrison and Mani S. Walia, Signal Peak — named after the highest natural point in the Lone Star State — offers customized litigation financing, private credit solutions and monetization options to plaintiffs and their trial counsel, the company said Monday in a statement.
Harrison told Law360 Pulse in an interview Tuesday that while there are “a lot of diverse skill sets out there in the funding world,” Signal Peak is distinctive as its co-founders are former trial attorneys who understand what it takes to successfully litigate a meritorious complex commercial case.
“We want to stand out in the industry for our integrity and the support that we’ll supply to the legal system and the justice system,” Harrison said. “We’re not just out there trying to monetize the legal field.”
Jackson M. Schaap, Signal Peak’s vice president of finance, said in an interview Tuesday that the company can provide funding to small startups or inventors who may be working from a garage and find their intellectual property is being exploited by a giant company with financial resources they
cannot match.
Harrison and Jackson said Signal Peak hopes to “bridge a resource gap in this type of David versus Goliath set up.”
Harrison said larger companies “with hundreds of commercial claims” can also benefit from litigation funding. Rather than settle the cases for pennies on the dollar to avoid having their legal department become a cost center, litigation funding “can actually turn their legal department into a profit center,” Harrison said.
Harrison and Jackson said Signal Peak also works with corporations and law companies with claims sitting on their balance sheets as unliquidated. Clients pay on a “non-recourse basis,” meaning they pay funds back only from claim proceeds, Jackson and Harrison said.
Jackson noted that a small startup may win a large case but not realize the win financially for years as the matter winds through the appellate process.
“We want to provide options to people who want their dollars sooner,” Jackson said. Harrison said she first became acquainted with Walia when he was handling an arbitration with her husband, Geoffery Harrison, a Susman Godfrey partner, and that as the two often began running into each other after transitioning from their law practices to the funding world, “we would bond over the excitement of bringing our trial lawyer background into the industry.”
“I’ve developed such an enormous respect for him, for his ethics and his expertise,” Harrison said. “So when this opportunity came to co-found a company with him, it was a no-brainer.”
Jackson, who worked with Walia for years at Siltstone Capital LLC, said the trial experience Harrison and Walia bring is “one of the feathers in Signal Peak’s cap” that sets the company apart.
Walia previously helped create the litigation finance group at Siltstone, where he served for 10 years as managing partner and general counsel, his LinkedIn profile shows. The largest investor in Walia’s Siltstone fund, Hazoor Partners, is Signal Peak’s anchor investor, the company said, adding that it has secured commitments of over $40 million in investment capital with a fundraising cap of $125 million.
Before pivoting to litigation finance in 2015, Walia had practiced for four years at Susman Godfrey LLP and had spent over a year with Baker Botts LLP, his LinkedIn profile shows.
Walia said in a statement, “I owe my approach to case selection to my mentor Stephen D. Susman, the country’s best trial lawyer over the last 50 years and the original litigation funder, and we continue his legacy of ensuring access to justice.”
“It is a professional dream to partner with Lauren,” Walia said. “She’s the person I admire most in the industry.”
Harrison previously served for nearly four years as vice president and investment counselor for Law Finance Group. Before that, Harrison practiced at Jones Walker LLP and at Vinson & Elkins LLP, the company said. Harrison served as a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Harrison earned her law degree from Cornell Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.
Before entering private practice, Walia served as a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Walia earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
