Expert Access supports contingency-fee lawyers by funding expert reports and freeing up working capital
Personal injury lawyers are advocates for people at their most vulnerable. Clients are often recovering from serious injuries, cut off from income, and struggling to access the care, benefits and compensation they need. In an ideal world, advancing a client's rights would be a plaintiff-side lawyer’s only concern.
But as litigation grows more complex and costly, pressure is building: bank financing remains elusive, protected account arrangements are under strain, and clients continue to depend on contingency-fee firms to go to bat for them against insurers.
BridgePoint Financial understands the competing priorities and harsh economic realities that lawyers in this space face — and has made a name for itself by bringing real solutions into the equation. Stepping in where traditional banks will not, BridgePoint is dedicated to bridging the persistent funding gap. This allows lawyers to keep their eye on the end goal: justice.
“Personal Injury litigation has always been a David-versus-Goliath contest,” says Stephen Pauwels, co-founder of BridgePoint. “We provide funding tools to help even the odds.”
Expert Access: a purpose-built solution
Any personal injury lawyer will tell you that one of their main pain points is the cost of procuring expert reports. Central to advancing personal injury cases, these too have only become more expensive. From medical assessments and vocational analyses to financial projections and engineering reports, the cost can be in the tens of thousands of dollars per client.
That reality is why BridgePoint to developed the Expert Access program, best described as equal parts financial solution and professional resource.
“Most lawyers are under some form of pressure, caused in large part by the substantial investment in retaining high quality experts across many files,” says James Howie of Howie Sacks & Henry LLP. “Expert Access makes this a nonissue.”
With Expert Access, BridgePoint not only covers the upfront cost of the reports, with repayment fully deferred until settlement and interest-free for up to two years, it also provides users with a matchmaking platform.
Through BridgePoint’s proprietary online portal, lawyers can use the Expert Search tool access a roster of hundreds of vetted experts across Canada in all specialties. They can view detailed profiles by name, region, specialty, and sub-specialty. They’re also able to review CVs, sample reports, and connect directly with the experts and IME companies — saving valuable time and advancing cases faster.
“Expert Access has become a key part of our personal injury practice,” says Matthew Newton Reid, managing partner at Cohen Highley LLP. “Not only has it freed up our working capital, but it connects us to an extensive roster of service providers, including niche disciplines that can be difficult to access on our own.”
The program also addresses a less visible but equally important pressure point: the strain on service providers themselves. For years, many plaintiffs’ firms have relied on protected accounts and other deferred payment arrangements, effectively shifting the financial risk of contingency litigation onto experts.
“Protected accounts have long been the go-to where clients couldn’t pay up front,” says Amanda Bafaro, chief risk officer and general counsel at BridgePoint. “But the volume of deferred cases has become financially unbearable for many service providers. They have staff and overhead like any other business, and they can’t wait years to be paid.”
By stepping in to fund expert reports, BridgePoint ensures experts are compensated promptly and insulated from the timing and outcome of the claim, while still giving law firms and clients the breathing room of deferred repayment.
“It’s better long term for all parties if law firms embrace a more balanced model,” Bafaro says. “Expert Access helps protect those necessary relationships.”
Against a backdrop of longer timelines for resolution and persistent court backlogs, a resource like Expert Access allows the focus to return to what matters most: advocating for clients, not worrying about how to pay for it.
“We’ve staked out a unique position in the Canadian legal market: part lender, part technology provider, part matchmaker,” Pauwels explains. “The program doesn’t just inject liquidity into the system; it reshapes how firms source experts, manage disbursements, and ultimately deliver justice.”
The practice management piece
There’s also the business side of the equation. Law schools don’t teach legal practice business management, and most litigators early in their careers aren’t thinking about cash flow. But for lawyers running contingency practices, those concerns are pressing.
Funding overhead and disbursements while waiting years for fees puts personal injury lawyers at a disadvantage, but leveraging tools such as Expert Access can make a considerable difference. It frees up working capital that can be invested back into the business.
“Access to capital is one of the key determinants in enabling growth,” says Tim Andrews, Chief Business Development Officer at BridgePoint. “Our financing allows firms to invest in more cases without sacrificing hiring, marketing, or operating expenses.”
It’s an attractive prospect especially to younger litigators who bring with them an openness to using financial products strategically. That mindset shift can pay dividends when it comes to critical functions such as succession planning, allowing firms to take advantage of opportunities without being hamstrung by cash flow constraints.
BridgePoint’s portal also provides a clear overview of their finances. By centralizing expenses in one place, there’s greater visibility over the firm’s financial position which helps with long-term planning.
Don’t let financial pressure dictate outcomes
The bottom line is that litigation is expensive long before a case reaches a conclusion. BridgePoint’s financing solutions are designed to absorb that cost upfront, allowing lawyers to build cases based on evidence rather than cash flow. In Pauwels’ view, that’s good news for all stakeholders.
“In a practice area where growing financial pressures too often dictate outcomes, Expert Access stands out for its dual function: easing the financial burden while improving access to qualified experts and their reports,” he sums up. “It’s one of the ways we help sustain contingency-fee practices that are essential to the advocacy work lawyers do.”
For more information, schedule a call with the BridgePoint Financial team today.
This article was produced in partnership with BridgePoint Financial
