• Contact
• News
• About
• Services
  • Settlement Loans
  • Disbursement Financing
  • Assessment Financing
  • Commercial and Class Action
• Home

Experts shouldn't have to be bankers

Investments in expert assessments represent the largest part of a personal injury law firm's outstanding disbursements. Unsurprisingly, lawyers often seek to reduce this burden by seeking deferred payment arrangements from their experts until the settlement of an underlying claim.

This "supplier financing" solution is an imperfect one for the experts from both a business (i.e. cashflow) perspective and a professional one (their status as a creditor on the file can be attacked by defense counsel).

The BridgePoint Solution

BridgePoint's Expert Assessment Financing Programme can satisfy both an expert's desire to be paid upon the provision of their services and a lawyer's preference to defer cash disbursements until settlement. Under this Programme, BridgePoint acquires accounts receivable from the assessment provider, and then awaits payment of the account from the law firm upon the resolution of the underlying file. Our purchase is 'non-recourse' to the expert, meaning once we acquire the account we assume all timing and collection risk associated with the account, and we will deal directly with the law firm in administering the collection.

The Programme essentially utilizes "Factoring" – a common method of financing businesses of various sizes across many industries where accounts receivable are assigned or sold to a "factor" in exchange for immediate cash to the service provider. Factoring is a particularly suitable financing solution for the personal injury assessment market given the very lengthy account collection cycles that can be involved, and the fact that most experts lack the dedicated resources (personnel and finances) to constantly monitor and pursue their accounts. Click here for additional information and Factoring FAQs.

Programme Features & Benefits

• Enables experts to offer flexible payment options to their law firm clients
• Provides experts with predictable, immediate payment for their services (funds can be advanced in 24 to 48 hours from producing a report)
• BridgePoint assumes all account administration, timing and collection risk
• Protects the expert from conflict of interest allegations from defence counsel
• Experts can select the accounts to be funded through the Programme on an individual basis at their discretion on a "no obligation" basis

A growing roster of experts from across the country – including individuals and IME companies – are utilizing this programme to manage their cashflows and to expand their referral base of law firm clients. Contact BridgePoint to learn more or to join the Roster of Experts accessible by more than 500 personal injury law firm clients of BridgePoint across Canada.

This Programme is not to be confused with BridgePoint's Treatment Financing Programme which does not involve 'factoring' of accounts. If you are a treatment provider please click here to learn more about this service.