Frequently asked questions, answered straight.

Pre-settlement legal funding is cash advanced to a plaintiff while their injury claim is still pending, in exchange for a portion of the money they may eventually recover. It is sometimes called a lawsuit loan, a settlement advance, or a lawsuit cash advance. Those are search terms, not accurate descriptions: the transaction is a non-recourse purchase, not an extension of credit.

The purpose is simple. Cases take months or years. Bills do not. Funding closes that gap so you are not forced to take the first offer an insurance company puts in front of you.

No, and the difference matters. A loan creates a personal debt you owe no matter what: it carries a credit check, a payment schedule, and a lender who can pursue you if you stop paying. A pre-settlement advance creates none of those things.

You will see the word "loan" used on this site and across the industry, because that is how people search for this product. It does not change the structure of what we do. Our agreement is a non-recourse purchase of a portion of your claim's proceeds.

It means our only recourse for repayment is your recovery. If your case settles or wins, our advance and the agreed funding cost come out of the proceeds, before your share is disbursed. If your case is lost, dismissed, or recovers nothing, we get nothing and you keep what we advanced.

We take that risk knowingly, and it is priced into every agreement. That is also why we underwrite the claim carefully instead of the person.

No. We do not pull your credit to approve you and we do not report the advance to Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion. There is no account, no balance, and no payment history for a bureau to record. An advance from us will not affect your score in either direction, and it will not appear on a mortgage or auto-loan application.

None. You will never receive a bill from us and you will never be asked to make a payment while your case is pending. The entire obligation is settled once, out of the proceeds, at the end. If you want to pay us back early out of other money you can, and doing so lowers what you owe.

No. Applying is free, getting a decision is free, and talking to us is free. If we decline your case, or you decide not to accept an offer, you owe us nothing and there is no obligation of any kind.

Broadly: an adult with a pending personal injury claim, represented by an attorney on a contingency fee, where someone else is clearly at fault and there is insurance or another source of money to pay a judgment.

Beyond that it comes down to the case. Strong liability, documented injuries, real medical treatment, and available coverage make a case fundable. Unclear fault, a defendant with no assets or insurance, or an injury with no treatment records make it hard.

That does not disqualify you. It is extremely common. Depending on what your case can support, we may be able to fund on top of the existing lien, or buy it out entirely and replace it with a single agreement.

Bring the other company's contract to the call. See buying out an existing advance for how that works.

Yes. If your case drags on, your treatment escalates, or your circumstances change, you can come back and request additional funding. Whether we can approve it depends on how much of your expected recovery is already committed and how the case has developed since. Repeat requests are usually faster because we already have the file.

There are practical limits on both ends, and they depend on your case rather than on a fixed policy. As a rule the industry advances only a modest fraction of what a claim is conservatively expected to recover, which protects you from ending up with nothing at the end. Your specialist will tell you the range your case supports on the first call.

We fund throughout the United States, but consumer legal funding is regulated differently in every state and is restricted or unavailable in some. We do not fund where it is prohibited, and where a state sets specific requirements our agreements meet them.

Tell us where you live on the application and we will tell you plainly whether we can help. If we cannot, we will try to point you somewhere that can.

Not with funding — attorney representation is a firm requirement, and we cannot advance money on an unrepresented claim. But call us anyway. We talk to injured people every day and we can tell you what to look for in a contingency-fee firm, then point you at your state or county bar association's lawyer referral service. We will not name a specific attorney or firm — we have no referral arrangement with any law firm, in either direction, and California law prohibits one. Once you are represented, come back.

Your name and contact information, where you live, what kind of case you have and roughly when it happened, who your attorney is, and roughly how much you need. That is it. No credit application, no bank statements, no employment verification, no references.

It takes most people about two minutes. Estimates are fine — nothing on the form is binding and you are not committing to anything by filling it out.

A funding specialist calls you, usually within the hour during business hours, to confirm a few details and answer your questions. We then contact your attorney's office and request the case file. Once the documents arrive, underwriting reviews the claim and we come back to you with a decision and, if approved, the exact terms in writing.

If you accept, you sign electronically and we disburse. Most people are funded the same day they sign.

Typically the police or incident report, the medical records and bills to date, the insurance coverage information, and any demand or pleadings already filed. Firms that do this regularly send it in one email. We will send your paralegal a short, specific list rather than a fishing expedition.

Direct deposit to your bank account is fastest and is what most people choose. We can also send a wire or mail a physical check if you prefer. Tell your specialist which you want when you sign.

You do nothing. When your case resolves, your attorney's office pays us out of the settlement proceeds as part of the normal disbursement, alongside medical liens and their own fee, and you receive the remainder. You will never write us a check unless you choose to pay early.

Yes. Every agreement we write includes a cancellation window during which you can return the funds and walk away owing nothing beyond what you received. Several states require this by law and we apply it everywhere. The exact number of days is stated on the first page of your agreement.

It depends on the strength and expected timeline of your case, and we will not pretend otherwise with a headline number that would not apply to you. What we will commit to is this: before you sign anything, you get the cost in writing, in plain language, with the total you would owe at settlement spelled out — not buried in a rate table you have to do math on.

Call or text us and we will quote your case specifically. There is no cost or obligation to find out.

Because a bank gets paid back whether or not you win, and we do not. When a funded case loses, that money is simply gone — there is no collateral to seize and no borrower to pursue. The cost of funding across all cases has to cover the ones that recover nothing.

That is also why the honest advice is to take the smallest amount that solves your problem, and to treat this as a bridge rather than a windfall.

You cannot owe us more than your share of the recovery. Because the advance is non-recourse and repaid solely from proceeds, there is no scenario in which we come after you personally for a shortfall.

That said, funding does reduce what you take home. That is the trade you are making, and it is why we underwrite conservatively and push people to borrow less than they qualify for.

You owe less. The cost of funding accrues over time, so a case that settles in six months costs meaningfully less than the same advance on a case that settles in three years. If your case resolves quickly, or you come into other money and want to pay us off, call us for a payoff figure.

There is no fee to apply and no fee to be declined. Any charge that would apply to a funded advance is disclosed on the agreement before you sign it. If you find a number in your contract that nobody explained to you, call us and we will walk through it line by line — or do not sign it.

Consumer legal funding is a transaction between the funder and your client, not between the funder and you. We do not pay referral fees to attorneys, we do not ask you to guarantee anything, and we take no role in strategy or settlement authority. Your obligations around client confidentiality and independent judgment are unaffected.

You should of course apply your own jurisdiction's rules and your own judgment about advising a client on a funding decision.

One document request and one acknowledgment, in most cases handled by a paralegal in a single email exchange. We send a specific list rather than a blanket demand, we do not call your office repeatedly for status, and we never charge your firm anything. See our attorney page for the full process.

No. We cannot and would not. Underwriting requires your cooperation and the agreement requires an attorney acknowledgment, so there is no version of this where a client is funded behind your back. If we decline a client, we tell them directly so you are not put in the position of delivering the news.

The product described on this site is consumer funding advanced to your client for living expenses. If you are looking at case-cost financing or a line of credit against your fee inventory, call us and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right partner for it.

No. We are a direct funder, not a lead broker. Your application is used to evaluate and service your funding request and is shared only with the people who need it for that purpose — principally your attorney's office. We do not sell your information to other funding companies, and applying with us will not trigger a wave of calls from firms you never contacted. See our Privacy Policy.

Yes. We request case documents from your attorney only with your written authorization, we treat them as confidential, and we do not disclose them to the defense, to insurers, or to anyone outside the underwriting of your request. Nothing you share with us waives your attorney-client privilege.

Brokers and lead sellers sometimes use funding companies' names to collect applications. Before you send anyone your case documents or personal information, call or text the number published on this site, (323) 366-8083, and confirm you are talking to us. We will never ask you for a fee to release funds, a gift card, or a payment of any kind up front.

Call or text (323) 366-8083, or email info@helloworldfunding.com, and ask for a supervisor. A real person answers, and we would much rather hear a complaint directly than read it in a review. If your issue is with the terms of a signed agreement, have it in front of you when you call and we will go through it clause by clause.