Post Settlement Funding

Post Settlement Funding – Get Your Money Right Away

Post Settlement Funding – Post-Settlement Funding Allows Law Firms and Plaintiffs to get some of their money in advance to help cover expenses related to, or resulting from their lawsuit.

At Balanced Bridge Funding, we are professional, courteous, fast, and discreet. Our clients like to keep their financing activities private, and we respect their wishes. When you work with us, you work with a group of true professionals with many years of legal funding industry experience.

When you work with Balanced Bridge Funding for your Post Settlement Funding Advance you are working with a true funding company. We are not a brokerage for someone else’s business. When you work with us, you work with the source, not a “middle man.” Going direct to a funding source can help keep costs down, maintain privacy, and ensure you are working with the people who actually make the decisions about your funding.

Balanced Bridge provides post settlement funding for attorneys. We advance in situations where an agreement has been reached, but there will be some delay until contingency fees are distributed. We fund a wide variety of cases including class action, injury, malpractice, employment, and more.

For attorneys with delayed contingency fees – CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW.

About Post Settlement Funding

Post Settlement Funding – Once a case settles or concludes and a judgment award is forthcoming, the money plaintiffs or attorneys are owed can be sold to a third-party litigation finance company like Balanced Bridge Funding. This is what post settlement funding is.

Post Settlement Funding allows the law firm to get access to their funds right away to pay bills, take on new customers, or expand into new law firm practice areas. Whatever the funds are used for, using Post Settlement Funding allows easy and quick access to money you are owed rather than waiting for the defendant to pay you.

Intro to Post Settlement Funding

What is Post Settlement Funding?

Post settlement funding is a financial vehicle plaintiffs and attorneys can use to receive advances on upcoming settlements or judgements. These funds can be used to finance rapid expansion, growth, take on new clients, and finance operations.

Post Settlement Funding is also known as Settlement Funding, third party litigation funding, or post settlement advances. Despite its various names, the specifics are always the same: The Law firm sells part of its settlement award to a third-party finance company at a discounted rate. This allows attorneys immediate access to the money they are owed instead of waiting on defendants to pay.

If you’d like to take an in depth look at Post Settlement Funding, please check out our Blog post on:

Post Settlement Funding for Plaintiff Attorneys.

Intro to Post Settlement Funding

Who is Post Settlement Funding For?

Post settlement funding is for law firms of all sizes and plaintiffs as well. Post settlement funding is utilized by large law firms to leverage their continued growth. Smaller law firms use post settlement funding to finance operations, take on new cases, hire better experts, and to help them be competitive.

Why Use Post Settlement Funding?

Lawyers make use of Post Settlement Funding for many different reasons but the three reasons we see repeatedly at Balanced Bridge Funding are:

Post Settlement Funding to Take on New Clients
Post Settlement Funding to Grow Their Law Firm
Post Settlement Funding to Manage Cash Flow

Let’s Take A More In Depth Look at These Three:

#1: Post Settlement Funding to Take on New Clients

Law Firms are often tentative about taking on new clients and new types of cases. New clients/cases are expensive and create time-consuming work that often causes the law firm to struggle financially. Every new client a law firm takes on creates more work, which almost always means more expenses. If you are already short on cash to pay bills, it makes it harder to imagine taking on new clients, even if the payout “down the road” could be huge. But if you have Post Settlement Funding available to help keep cash in the bank account, then it becomes easier for attorneys to take on larger clientele or more projects than they would otherwise.

This scenario isn’t limited just to law firms; lots of businesses are both attracted to the idea of new accounts, and simultaneously frightened to win those accounts because of the cash crunch new customers often cause. That is why big businesses always employ third party financing – so they can continue growing without the fear of onboarding new accounts. When you have cash flow management challenges, new customers don’t solve the cash flow problem – they double it!

#2: Post Settlement Funding to Grow Your Law Firm

Law firms need to grow and expand like all businesses. Large companies often take out loans or sell stock as well as seek private equity so they can continue their success story into the future, why should lawyers be any different?

Law Firms should be taking advantage of available resources like finance companies to leverage their future growth. This is one reason lawyers use Post Settlement Funding – to fund their future growth. Time spent waiting on money is lost time and missed opportunities. To grow a business, you need to be on top of financing your future growth, making acquisitions, expanding into new practice areas, hiring new talent, and employing better technology. All of this costs money – money most businesses don’t have in their bank account. This is why organizations sell equity, use private equity, sell bonds, and use debt – to cover the cost of expansion and fund their ability to take on bigger and better clients and cases in the future.

Check out our full blog post: Why Plaintiff Attorneys Use Post Settlement Funding

#3: Post Settlement Funding to Help Managing Cash Flow

Cash flow refers to two flows of cash: Cash Flowing into your business – and – Cash Flowing out of your business. If your cash flows out of your law firm faster than it flows in, you will have cash flow problems.

Additionally, when you have to continuously pay bills, rent, and salaries every month, but it takes you years to get paid for your work, this creates cash flow problems. Your cash goes down, down, down, and then periodically goes way up. And if you run out of cash to pay those monthly bills, regardless of how much money you have coming to you, you are out of the game. You can’t pay bills with the money you are owed. You can only pay bills with the money you have available now. This is how Post Settlement Funding came about – to aid law firms in overcoming these cash flow problems.

If you’d like to learn more about cash flow problems for law firms please read our blog post Cash Flow 101 For Law Firms.

Post Settlement Funding Strategy for Growth

Business owners who think small, tend to stay small. Large businesses never hesitate to use “other people’s money” to fund their future growth. They borrow, sell debt, sell shares, and take positions on commodity exchanges to hedge against price fluctuations. They buy new companies just to leverage their assets for the growth of their existing businesses. Law firms should be no different.

Major lawsuits are expensive and can last years or even decades. During that time, the law firm does not receive any capital from the lawsuit. Even after the case is settled, it can take years before the money is actually paid out.

Post settlement funding is a great way to leverage the work you’ve already done to fund future growth instead of putting growth on hold while you wait to be paid for efforts.

How Does Post Settlement Funding Work?

How Post Settlement Funding Works – Once you (the law firm) have reached a settlement or judgement on behalf of your client, the money you are owed is considered an asset. You own the rights to the money you are owed. Because it is an asset, all or part of it can be sold. We (Balanced Bridge Funding) purchase a portion of the amount owed to you (at a discount). You get money now, and we own the asset (a portion of the settlement funds you sold to us). You go on about running your law firm, and we wait for the settlement funds to be paid to us directly by lead counsel, or whomever is designated to distribute the funds on behalf of the settlement.

For attorneys with delayed contingency fees – CLICK HERE TO APPLY NOW.

Infographic – How Post Settlement Funding for Plaintiff Attorneys Works

Let Us Explain How Post Settlement Funding Works

Let’s say you are going to receive $100,000 in fees from a settlement at some point, but you need some of that money now.

Here is a Fictitious Example of How Post Settlement Funding Works: 

$100,000 – Amount of Contingency Fees You Are Owed
$50,000 – Amount of Post Settlement Advance You Want to Take Out
$45,000 – Amount You Receive Right Away From a Post Settlement Funding Company

$50,000 – Remainder of Money You Will Receive When the Settlement Check is Paid.

$95,000 – Total Amount You Will Receive ($45,000 Advance + $50,000 When Settlement Finally Pays Out)

$5,000 – Amount of Money The Post Settlement Funding Company Makes for Advancing You $45,000

NOTE:This information is a fictional example for the purpose of explaining how post settlement funding for plaintiff attorneys works and does not reflect rates or fees charged for post settlement funding as each case is different.  

Is Post Settlement Funding a Loan?

Post Settlement Funding is NOT a Loan.

Although Post Settlement Funding is often referred to as a loan for lawyers, or settlement advances for lawyers, it is not a loan. If you look at the infographic above or the explanation below it, you will see that the third party litigation finance company isn’t loaning you money against your settlement award. Instead, they are purchasing it from you and then they get their money from the attorney of record handling the distribution of funds from the case. The terms might seem semantical, but they matter.

Some states have passed bills just to specify that Post Settlement Funding does not in any way meet the criteria of a loan and cannot be called a loan. Example: In 2020, Utah passed HB 312 which specifically states post settlement funding does not meet the definition of a loan or credit.

Unlike a loan, post settlement funding does not have monthly or interim payments to a lender. When your case finally pays out, your obligor pays Balanced Bridge Funding directly.

How Does Balanced Bridge Funding Get Paid?

When the settlement pays out, Balanced Bridge Funding is repaid what it is owed directly from the case administrator, lead counsel, or from the escrow account. You are paid any remainder owed to you. Remember, we purchased this asset from you. It is ours, and it is our responsibility to collect what is owed to us from the settlement or award.

What Type of Settlements Does Balanced Bridge Funding Finance?

We fund all types of settlements where there is a delay between time of settlement and actual payment. Here are just a few (not all) types of settlements we will fund:

Class Actions
SSDI
Veterans Disability Claims
Sexual Assault
Infant Injuries
Product Liability
Personal Injury
Truck Accidents
Mass Torts
Multi-District Litigation
Employment Discrimination
Wrongful Death
Slip & Fall
Medical Malpractice
And More!

Chances are, if you are going to receive a settlement or award, you can receive post settlement funding from Balanced Bridge Funding.

Is Post Settlement Funding Regulated?

As of 2022, there is no federal regulation for third party litigation funding. Some states have begun considering regulation, and it is reasonable to expect regulation in the future and for those regulations to differ state to state.

The legal industry is policing themselves (as they tend to do) regarding legal funding. The American Bar Association (in 2020) issued a report of “best practices” for third party litigation funding. To read the full report, click here.

The Legal Funding industry has made a great deal of progress policing itself. There are at least two associations now in the Legal Funding Industry. The Alliance for Responsible Consumer Legal Funding (ARC), and the American Legal Finance Association (ALFA).

Does Balanced Bridge Funding Belong to an Association?

Yes, Balanced Bridge is a member of ARC – The Alliance for Responsible Consumer Legal Funding.