It's clear that the subprime debacle has resulted in an outpouring of litigation. The trend was fairly obvious just months ago when I looked at the issue here.

Now, the trned seems to be gathering pace with latest piece of research from Cornerstone Research and Stanford University Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse showing that the level of litigation remains high with 110 filings in the first half of 2008. On an annualized basis, that means as many as 220 filings could come in by the end of the year. The level of litigation activity eclipsed the annual average for the eleven years between January 1997 and December 2007 and about half the filings in the first half of 2008 were driven by the subprime mortgage/credit crunch. You can bet the market volatility would have also driven these numbers.

Furthermore, companies are paying out more and super-sized filings are growing.

Not good news for corporate America and with the way the market and banks are headed, it's going to get worse.