Pre-settlement legal funding can help you fight for the maximum possible award for the damages you’ve suffered. A lawsuit can take months or even years to settle, but your bills won’t wait for your money to arrive. Medical bills, mortgage or rent payments, and daily living expenses can pile up fast, putting you under pressure to settle for less.
With legal funding, you can take home part of your settlement now instead of waiting for your case to settle. You’ll have the money you need now to pay your bills, giving you the breathing room you need to fight for the full amount of your settlement. Find out if pre-settlement legal funding is the right option for you.
What Is Pre-Settlement Legal Funding?
Often, the opposing side in a lawsuit will try to drag out the case for as long as possible. They do this because they want to force you to become desperate enough to settle for less than you deserve. Pre-settlement legal funding allows you to turn the tables on them and fight for your maximum settlement.
Pre-settlement legal funding from Tribeca allows you to borrow forward from your future settlement. In this way, it’s not really a “loan” but is actually a type of cash advance. There are two important points to understand about pre-settlement legal funding:
- You pay back the agreed-upon amount from your eventual settlement.
- You do not have to pay it back if you do not win your lawsuit.
The IRS considers legal funding a type of nonrecourse debt, meaning you aren’t liable to repay it from your personal assets. Repayment will come from whatever collateral is used to obtain the funding, which in this case is your settlement. That means pre-settlement funding carries no risk to you, and you won’t have to pay anything back if you lose your case.
Pre-Settlement Funding Pros and Cons
Pre-settlement funding has plenty of advantages, but it isn’t without its share of critics. If you’re exploring legal funding as an option, you’ll want to know about its pros and cons. You’ll have a better idea if car wreck loans are the right option and how to spot a bad deal before signing onto one.
Advantages of Pre-Settlement Legal Funding
With pre-settlement funding, you’ll get access to money from your settlement that you might not see for years – or at all, if you lose your case. Unfortunately, here is no guarantee that you’ll win, even if it seems like everything should go in your favor. Legal funding presents a no-risk way for you to get some of your settlement money now.
Additionally, legal funding can help you resist pressure tactics that defendants often use in settlement cases. In many cases, especially when a defendant knows they’re likely to lose, they’ll try to drag out negotiations in the hope that you face enough financial pressure to settle for less. This is less effective if you can get money from your expected settlement now.
Disadvantages of Pre-Settlement Legal Funding
The legal funding industry is largely unregulated, which means that plaintiffs who don’t know what to look for could be taken advantage of by an unscrupulous lender. One of the most common ways this happens is through interest rates. A reputable legal funding company will only charge a low rate of simple interest, leaving you with more money from your settlement.
Another potential downside of legal funding is more subtle and has to do with timing. Before applying for legal funding, you should ask yourself whether your case will be worth more now or in the future. While you may be under pressure to take out money now, if you are able to wait, you might be able to get a better deal and a larger amount of funding.
What Cases Does Pre-Settlement Legal Funding Cover?
Pre-settlement legal funding is available in a wide variety of situations. Cases involving personal injury are common examples, including:
- Auto accidents
- Product liability claims
- Defective medical devices
- Medical malpractice
- Premises liability claims
- Faulty pharmaceutical drugs
Other types of cases which commonly result in legal funding revolve around labor law, employment law, commercial litigation, FELA railroad claims, and whistleblower cases. However, if you are waiting on a settlement of any kind, it’s likely that you can obtain pre-settlement legal funding for it.
How to Qualify for Pre-Settlement Legal Funding
It’s easier to qualify for pre-settlement legal funding than you might think. All that is taken into consideration in your application for legal funding are the following:
- You must have filed a lawsuit for a qualifying case
- You must be represented by an attorney or law firm
That’s all that matters – your credit score, personal finances, and any other factors that are considered for a typical recourse loan aren’t relevant for legal funding. That’s because your settlement case will be where all repayment of the funding comes from. Your legal funding company will evaluate the details of your case to determine how much funding they’ll offer you.
Areas Served by Tribeca Lawsuit Loans
Tribeca Lawsuit Loans is dedicated to providing safe, effective financial assistance to clients in need. We make sure to abide by industry best practices and all applicable federal compliance lending laws in the states we serve. As a national business, we serve clients in every US state EXCEPT the following:
- West Virginia
- Colorado
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Kentucky
- Montana
- Maryland
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
- Vermont
- Alaska
- New Hampshire
- Maine
- Indiana
- Illinois
The Pre-Settlement Legal Funding Process
A good legal funding company will have designed their application process to get money to people who need it as quickly as possible.
Step One: You Apply
The first step to obtaining legal funding is simply applying for it. You may need to provide information like:
- The nature of your lawsuit
- Your expected settlement amount
- Your financial need
- The name and contact information of your attorney or law firm
With a reputable legal funding company, application is fast and takes just a few minutes.
Step Two: Review
The underwriters at the legal funding company will receive your application and go over the details. They may need to contact your attorney to discuss specifics and get their professional perspective on the merits and expectations of your case, including how long they believe your settlement negotiations will take.
Step Three: You Get Paid
After your application has been approved, you could have your legal funding sent right to your bank account. With a quality funding company, you could have your settlement funding in as little as a day or even less.
Repaying Your Pre-Settlement Legal Funding
Most clients are particularly interested in learning about the repayment process. There is considerable worry over predatory lending practices that target plaintiffs who simply don’t know much about the legal funding industry. However, your funding is a form of non-recourse debt secured by the collateral of your future settlement, which means:
- We only pursue repayment from the settlement amount.
- You pay us back in a lump sum once you receive your settlement, rather than in monthly installments.
- If you lose your lawsuit and do not get a settlement, you do not have to pay us back!
Tribeca Lawsuit Loans takes on the risk when providing pre-settlement legal funding, saving you from having to worry about monthly payments, defaulting on a loan, or having wages garnished. All those are associated with predatory recourse debt instead of the safer non-recourse funding we provide.
Apply for the Money You Need Today
When you get pre-settlement legal funding from Tribeca Lawsuit Loans, that money becomes yours immediately. Use it for daily expenses like food and gas, a replacement for any lost income due to injury, medical bills, or whatever else you need to pay for while your settlement negotiations take place.
Within 24 hours of approval, you can have your money in your bank account. Tribeca Lawsuit Loans is capable of providing anywhere from $500 to $100,000 in financial assistance, depending on the facts of the case. To date, we have funded more than $45 million to people just like you, waiting on the compensation they are owed.
Get in touch with Tribeca Lawsuit Loans today. We have a 94% case acceptance rate, so chances are great that we can help you. Call or fill out our online form and get approval in as little as 24 hours.