Unpaid Internships and Legal Funding

Since the recession hit in 2008, the world has been in shock and the badly damaged economies have been slowly trying to work their way back to the job producing behemoths they once were. The older generation looked at their retirement portfolio, saw the decrease in their standing, and has stayed on because it would be too costly to retire at this point. Since they won’t retire, the people next in line can’t fill those positions and going down the line, pretty soon society becomes out of order. rnNo one has experienced this problem more than recent graduates. In school, they teach students that getting an internship is only about getting your foot in the door. The gospel of doing an internship, paid or unpaid, is preached in colleges, but what they don’t tell you is the difference between exploitation and being an intern. rnAn internship is hard work and if it is unpaid, extremely hard because you as the intern have to make up the difference in getting there, going home, and lunch if you can afford it. Recently, there have been reports in the news about interns who thought they were being exploited filing lawsuits against their employers. For example, a “Charlie Rose” intern sued the host and show over fair wage allegations. In addition two men who worked on the hit movie “Black Swan” filed a similar lawsuit. As a citizens and residents of the United States of America, the interns who took legal action have the right to file a lawsuit if they feel like they are being exploited. rnLawsuits are extremely expensive and very exhausting on different fronts, so it takes a lot, especially for students who don’t have money, to go through the courts to get some kind of justice. The lawsuits some of the interns have filed span the gamut of industries. Some law firms are soliciting unpaid intern cases, as can be seen at this website. Legal funding can actually help the interns in this situation. The use of legal funding by attorneys is growing every day. One of the best places its benefits can be utilized is in class action cases. The cases of the unpaid interns are going to take a long time to work through the court systems. If the interns actually happen to win, then the payout may take just as long, and that’s if the defendants don’t appeal. rnIf the interns decide to use legal funding, the companies in the industry will evaluate the merits of the case and decide if it’s worth being funded through non-recourse financing. If the interns win their case, a legal funding company can provide them with funds that can bridge them from the time of the settlement to when the defendants actually decide to pay. rnThese are two different ways that legal funding can play a positive role in helping people get justice. Legal funding was designed for cases like this, where the odds are stacked against plaintiff, but legal funding provides a step ladder so the plaintiff has a fighting chance.