Signal Peak rises more than 8,750 feet from the plains of West Texas, making it the tallest summit in the state. On the other side of Texas in Houston are two former Big Law trial lawyers who hope to make their litigation finance startup, Signal Peak Partners, as dominant a feature of the landscape as its namesake.
Their ambitious sights are well-founded. Lauren J. Harrison previously worked as a vice president at litigation funder Law Finance Group and was a partner at Vinson & Elkins, while Mani S. Walia co-founded the litigation finance strategy at the minerals and royalty investment firm Siltstone Capital and was an associate at Susman Godfrey. Both Harrison and Walia clerked for two federal judges. They believe their investment and legal experience can help make Signal Peak a powerhouse funder of complex commercial litigation.
“Commercial case costs, and particularly expert witness fees, have risen substantially over the past decade. Clients often cannot or prefer not to bear those litigation expenses,” Walia notes. “The capital markets have not caught up. We fill a need.”
According to Walia, there are around 40 litigation funders in the U.S. and, of those, less than a third underwrite complex commercial cases. “We are a litigation funding company that is run by trial lawyers for trial lawyers,” Walia stated. “We came up in law firms and courtrooms and have the added finance experience through managing institutional capital. Our zealous trial lawyer focus is the right approach when the product is a lawsuit.”
Signal Peak launched in June 2025. Its anchor investor, Austin-based Hazoor Partners, was the largest backer of Walia’s prior Siltstone funds and opened Signal Peak’s first funding round in March 2026. In less than a year, and buoyed by a massive win on one of its first investments, the new venture boasts an enviable investor roster – including some of the country’s most elite endowments and institutions.
“The turnaround from idea to execution was pretty instantaneous,” comments Harrison. “Once we decided to do it, we were off to the races.” By every meaningful measure of business success – profitability, the caliber of its team, international recognition, and an advisory board that includes multiple retired federal and state judges – Signal Peak has already joined the ranks of the elite.
THE ROUTE TO BASE CAMP
Harrison, a graduate of Cornell Law School, started her legal career as an associate at Susman Godfrey after clerking for federal judges on the Western District of Washington and the Ninth Circuit. She made partner at Vinson & Elkins, where she worked from 1999 to 2009, and then joined the trial practice of New Orleans-based Jones Walker at its Houston office. She first encountered litigation finance because of her antitrust expertise.
Law Finance Group, Harrison recalls, retained her to do outside diligence on an antitrust case in which it was considering investing. “I liked working with them, and they achieved a pretty big hit on a case I underwrote for them,” she says. “So they started bringing me repeat business, and each time I would say how much I enjoyed working in this environment.” In 2021, Harrison joined Bay Area-based LFG full-time as a vice president, working remotely from Houston and doing a combination of sourcing and underwriting.
Large companies have access to capital markets. Why shouldn't all clients? Why shouldn't lawyers?
“I enjoyed the work and being in the industry,” she says, “but I didn't love working remotely. Also their risk tolerance was a little different. They were in the market for later-stage low-risk/low-return opportunities. With my litigation background, I was interested in exploring early-stage opportunities, which carry more risk and require a different vision.”
Then, in early 2025, Walia came calling. “He said that some investors had approached him and asked if he was interested in starting his own litigation funding company. Basically, he told me, ‘I want to do this with a partner. And I have a list of one – you.’"
Walia, who graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, clerked for federal judges on the Southern District of Texas and the Third Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Susman Godfrey, with patent cases accounting for about one third of his docket. One of his mentors and colleagues at the firm was Harrison’s husband, Geoffrey Harrison, with whom he worked on an oil and gas arbitration. If prompted, Walia will not stop raving about his experiences at Susman Godfrey, noting that no other firm in the country rivals Susman’s approach of taking cases on full risk, genuine camaraderie, and legendary ability to both win big and celebrate commensurately. In 2015, he moved to Siltstone, where he served as managing partner and general counsel.
“I followed Siltstone’s entry into the litigation finance space,” Harrison recalls. “And when I joined that world, Mani and I would interact in that context.” For Walia’s part, he perceived Harrison as his “biggest competitor” in the litigation finance space. “I always would worry, ‘Oh, gosh, if someone's calling me, they're probably going to call Lauren and they probably like Lauren better and she's going to move faster.’"
Initially, however, Harrison did not agree to join Walia in his new venture. “I actually told him ‘No,’” she says. “I said, ‘This is not a time in my life when I want to start a company. I'm not looking to be an entrepreneur.’ But I kept thinking about it, and we talked about what our vision would be if we did do this.”
Finally, Harrison, Walia, and their spouses went out to dinner together. “Over wine and some toasts, we talked about what this could be, the culture that we could build and also the litigation chops that we could bring to this,” Harrison remembers. “And as we were driving home, Geoff turned to me and said, ‘You would be crazy not to do this.’"
“It made so much business sense to improve what I had done at [Siltstone] by having a real trial lawyer, like me, who could help source these cases,” says Walia. “Anytime I say the words ‘Lauren Harrison,’ to anyone in the elite lawyer community, people have some kind of powerful associated goodwill. Very few litigators have real trial experience and even fewer litigation funders have trial experience in their backgrounds. Signal Peak stands out because Lauren and I can connect with our trial lawyer brethren. We used to be them.”
For her part, Harrison emphasizes that Signal Peak could not exist without Walia’s leadership chops and the faith both attorneys and investors place in him. “He possesses a rare combination of fierce ability and heart-melting kindness. He is a force of nature and a mensch.”
THE RIGHT TEAM FOR THE EXPEDITION
To round out its team, Signal Peak secured Jackson Schaap as vice president of finance and Carly Thompson-Peters as director of operations. Both had worked with Walia at Siltstone, where Schaap led acquisition and development (A&D) underwriting, valuation and strategic planning across portfolios exceeding $300M of aggregate assets under management, while Thompson-Peters served as a paralegal at the firm. “Lauren and I were fortunate,” Walia says. “We had two litigation funding specialists ready to join us. In addition, in that the private equity world in which we operate, it is essential to have investors. We were also lucky to have an anchor and larger investor right out of the gate.”
The partners’ backgrounds made complex commercial cases a natural focus. During fundraising meetings with investors, they emphasized what Harrison calls a “translucence of underwriting.” “When you have a commercial case as distinct from an injury case, you have the contracts, the patents, the correspondence between the parties and access to the decision-makers,” she explains. “You're able to consult much of the material that will be at issue in the case. Obviously, there will be discovery and there will be documents that come out that add flavor one way or another. But for the most part, I can look at, say, a trade secret case and say, ‘Ok, I know what the elements of a trade secret claim are. I know that this is where you're going to have the most problems of proof.’ And then I ask, ‘Is that a good appeal point? How factual is it? How legal?’ You can really dig in and do a layered diligence assessment of a commercial case.”
Signal Peak stands out because Lauren and I can connect with our trial lawyer brethren. We used to be them.
Harrison is also cognizant that they are shepherding their investors’ money and trying to get them a return. With that in mind, they’re focused on building a portfolio of high-quality cases that they deeply understand.
On the client side, while many more trial lawyers have gained sophistication around funding in recent years, there is still a level of education that comes with this work. “They don't teach this in law school,” says Harrison. “A surprising number of top lawyers do not interact with our industry and don't know how it can be used.”
Signal Peak’s capital is available for financing hard costs, assisting a client’s balance sheet, evening out lumpy law firm earnings, and for tax planning. “Large companies have access to capital markets,” Harrison says. “Why shouldn't all clients? Why shouldn't lawyers?”
As part of their underwriting process, Signal Peak boasts an advisory committee consisting of several retired state and federal judges, a former top trial lawyer who now serves as an arbitrator and mediator, a law professor and a former investment manager of one of their competitors. This gives the team a powerful review process that helps them decide which cases to fund and, as Harrison says, “to make sure we are not drunk on Kool-Aid.” She adds, “some of the attorneys we work with have said that they value that part of the process. Having a former federal judge say ‘this is the issue I think will be determinative’ can help their case strategy going forward,” she says.
OFF TO THE RACES
Away from work, Harrison is an accomplished horsewoman who has competed in show-jumping events with her horses Hudson and Hugo. She had previously stepped away from riding to focus on education, career and raising a family. “I didn't have the time or the resources or the bandwidth for many years. And I didn't want to take myself away from my family all weekend and kind of put myself in harm's way. But now my kids are grown. This is my time. I've earned this. So on Mother's Day, I was competing at a horse show, and then I had dinner with my family.”
Unsurprisingly, Walia also enjoys the thrill of competition. A seasoned 5K-to-marathon road racer, he recently topped his own personal best and continues to podium finish for his age group in most races. The dedication to train year-round by running thousands of miles to make continuous small improvements embodies Walia’s view on the Signal Peak team – continuously refining its business processes to provide funding faster than its peers.
Signal Peak Partners may be “off to the races,” but it is proceeding at a measured gallop, still comprising four people. “All of us do the work of multiple people, and maybe Carly does the work of 5,” Walia says. “Jackson's the same way.” Walia describes the firm as “entrepreneurial and organized … We get a lot of stuff done in our team of four because we are so organized.” Walia opines, “Lawyers are underrated business entrepreneurs. Lauren’s and my background of organizing trial teams, identifying tasks, and assigning a lean subset of the team to execute has translated to the ethos at Signal Peak.”
This summer Signal Peak moved into its office space in the Galleria area in Houston. “Carly and I probably looked at 25 different office spaces and chose one where the layout mirrors the culture of inclusiveness and collaboration that we want to foster,” Harrison reports. “Unlike the traditional law firm design where it's like a bowling alley with offices along the side, it's almost circular.”
Following their final close in 2026, Signal Peak will finish constructing a portfolio of 25-30 cases. “Mani and I like to say that if we had 10 times as much money in our fund, we couldn't find 10 times as many worthy cases to invest in,” says Harrison. “It's a self-renewing resource, but at any given time it’s a finite one.”
The measured strategy means they won’t have a pressure to over-deploy and potentially lower their standards or take on types of cases that they aren’t familiar with. They plan to stay on good footing with their underwriting and build a select portfolio of cases they see having a strong path to a positive resolution.
And if all goes well, they plan another round of fundraising in a year and a half. From peak to peak, it’s the type of growth trajectory that we’re excited to watch – and that the market is more than ready for.
