Controlling costs with disbursement finance
- Risk management & insurance
Law firm challenge
A leading UK firm had an enviable reputation in high-value litigation. A well-managed business, it was both solvent and cash generative. But the changed UK landscape, with the end of recoverability of CFA success fees and ATE premiums, had led to reduced revenues for the firm—and caused it to look for assistance in controlling costs.
The firm estimated that at any time it would need to fund £1.5 million in disbursements and out-of-pocket expenses on existing cases to realize its growth plans. However, funding disbursements on its own balance sheets would require either an increased overdraft or withholding partners’ profits in other areas of the practice.
Burford legal finance solution
Under Burford’s disbursement funding solution, monies were advanced to the firm to discharge disbursements on cases as they needed to be paid. When an individual case was successful, Burford received back the monies advanced plus a proportion of damages from each case to make up a return on this amount.
Legal finance impact
Without funding from Burford, the firm’s growth would have stagnated, and they would not have been able to take on the number of cases that made up the resulting portfolio arrangement. The cases successfully settled in relatively short order.
