A Guernsey-based company that specialises in financing lawsuits and arbitration cases will today become the first of its kind to list its shares on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's junior market.

Juridica, set up and run by Richard Fields, a 25-year veteran of litigation in Britain and America, plans to invest in legal disputes, helping to foot the bill for courtroom fights between companies.

It will also fund law firms, part-financing their costs.

The fund, 18 months in the preparation, has raised £80 million at 100p a share from investors including Jupiter Asset Management, Artemis and Sisu Capital. Conditional dealing is to start today.

The listing of Juridica, the first litigation specialist to list in London, comes as interest among hedge funds in the legal area develops apace.

As well as chasing higher one-off returns, hedge funds are increasingly looking to diversify their own risks.

In this case, returns come in the form of a share of any payout or settlement of a claim.

It emerged last month that MKM Longboat, a $2.3 billion (£1.1billion) British fund, had hired a former litigator, Susan Dunn, to invest $100 million in European legal disputes.

Mr Fields said that Juridica will spend a maximum of two years investing the funds raised before returning to the market for a second round of financing.

Mr Fields said that Juridica would concentrate on the more established American litigation market, but would also work in the UK, particularly in insurance disputes, including the Lloyd's of London market.

The fund would invest highly selectively in class-action lawsuits but would shun the market for individual injury claims, Mr Fields said.

He said: “We will primarily invest in business-to-business cases, initially antitrust, intellectual property and insurance contract disputes. In the long term, we believe that the litigation market is becoming a global market. We are not going to be buying claims in their entirety.

"But the demand for capital is there, even among Fortune 500 companies. Major corporations like to spread their risk. Equally, you want to make sure the lawyer has skin [risk] in too.”

Mr Fields has been a practising lawyer since 1982 and will be working as a partner in Dickstein Shapiro, an American firm based in Washington and employing 400 staff.

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