Litigation funding is a hot topic throughout legal circles in Australia and internationally, and this is reflected in a conference to be held in December.

The conference, "Collective Redress and Litigation Funding", will cover a spectrum of relevant issues and will be at Sydney Law School on December 11 and at the Australian National University in Canberra on December 12 and 13, featuring a host of local and international experts.

The overseas contingent includes Theodore Eisenberg, a professor at Cornell University Law School; Deborah Hensler, a professor of dispute resolution and associate dean at Stanford University Law School; Paul Fenn, an expert in liability insurance who is a professor at Nottingham University's Business School; Christopher Hodges, head of a research program on civil justice programs at the University of Oxford's Centre for Socio-Legal Studies; and Neil Rickman, an economics professor at the University of Surrey and a member of the Rand Institute for Civil Justice in Europe.

The conference convenor is George Barker, the director of the Centre for Law and Economics at the ANU's College of Law. Other local participants include Peter Cashman, director of the Social Justice Program at Sydney Law School; and Peta Spender, a professor at the ANU's College of Law who specialises in corporate law, financial market regulation and litigation.

Objectives of the conference (which is funded by an Australian Research Council grant) include the sharing of information on continuing major developments globally and to discuss in greater detail key issues now confronting many jurisdictions.

For more details visit www.law.anu.edu.au/cle.