Attorneys

These relationships and the opportunity to co-counsel have had dramatic impact on other firms and it could be vital in getting your firm to the next level.

SERVICES

• Handle all your firm's financial needs
• Referral of cases to your firm
• Co-counseling Opportunities Nationwide
• Connect your firm with other law firms who need your
       financial support and/or man-power

Non-Recourse  Program

Provides funding against one case or a small matrix of cases.

1) No pay back if the case is lost

2) No personnel guarantees

3) No monthly fees

4) No liens against your Firm

5) The amount can be given to the Firm in one lump sum

6) Underwriting can be finalized in 30 days or less

7) Can fund as high as $40 million against a case or a matrix of cases

The Why:
It is commonly known in the legal community that deep-pocketed defendants (typically insurance companies) use the relative imbalance of financial staying power to force premature, monetarily inadequate settlements of meritorious lawsuits. From a law firm's perspective, the successful resolution of many lawsuits can be exceedingly expensive to fund--from general case development costs such as travel and lodging, to the costs of expert witnesses. Many of these firms cannot match the deep pockets of insurance companies. Additionally, many law firms advertise aggressively in the face of tremendous competition, and have a concomitant need for working capital to help drive their new business origination. Since traditional lenders are rarely at ease with granting credit to service organizations such as law firms, "NLF" has developed the ARC Program.

The Answer:
The ARC Program provides a comprehensive financial management solution for selected contingency-based law firms. The Program provides borrowers with a competitively priced, full recourse working capital line that may be used for any purpose, including but not limited to, marketing, advertising costs, case acquisition, expenses, overhead and other short term needs. The Program is designed to help law firms manage their cash flows and positively impact their bottom lines. To the extant the funds are used to finance litigation costs, the firm may be able to recapture a portion of the interest expense as a litigation expense thereby lowering the firms overall cost of capital. The size, rate and duration of the loan are based upon the law firm's areas of concentration, historical results, case portfolio and financial condition.

The funding requirements of contingency fee operations are unpredictable since even successful trial lawyers have significant peaks and valleys in their cash flow. Additionally, partners in many law firms are loath to guarantee debt incurred by their firm. As such, many lawyers and law firms were willing to pay a premium for convenient, deferred pay, limited recourse collateralized financing. "NLF's" Attorney Advance Program is designed to minimize the financial pressures encountered by contingent fee-based law firms by matching advances with the settlement of cases, thereby avoiding an artificial cash flow crisis.

"NLF's" Attorney Advance capitalizes the contingency fees and litigation costs associated with a pool of cases based upon an independent analysis of the value and risk of the underlying cases. The advantages of this approach to litigation funding is that it: minimizes the law firms' cash flow fluctuations by matching the repayment of advances with the settlement of cases; reduces the credit risk by cross collateralized the underlying cases; and, shortens the weighted average life of the typical transaction due to the "turbo" feature which calls for a pay down of advances from 100% of all cases settled, starting from the first case that settles. The market for this product is by far the newest and fastest growing sector of the pre-settlement funding market. The average size of the investment in this product ranges in size from $50,000 to $500,000.

POST-SETTLEMENT ADVANCE
A Post Settlement or Post Judgment Advance is a non-recourse transfer of funds, meant as a solution for a client or lawyer awaiting payment from the defense. In some cases, a settlement is reached but the defense will take a long time to pay (the wait for settlement money is often four months or longer; meanwhile, the law firm, after a long court battle, might be in a precarious financial state). In such a case, fast emergency cash is needed, and NLF can use this type of advance to provide such funds.