Growth is the goal for many successful plaintiff law firms, but growth often means more than taking on additional clients. It means evolving, adapting, and expanding into new practice areas. Whether your firm wants to add personal injury, employment law, class action, mass torts, or medical malpractice to your portfolio, the move can open the door to new opportunities, broader impact, and greater revenue.
However, expansion has challenges, especially for contingency law firms. New practice areas require new investments, stretching even the healthiest law firm budgets.
The Financial Hurdles of Practice Area Diversification
Expanding into a new area of law is a strategic decision, but it can also be costly. Common financial hurdles include:
Hiring or Training Specialized Talent
Different practice areas often require different skill sets. You may need to recruit attorneys or support staff with specialized knowledge or certifications, or invest in additional training for your current team. These costs add up quickly.
Marketing to a New Audience
Every legal practice area serves a unique client base. Expanding your services means repositioning your firm, building awareness, and generating trust within a new segment of potential clients. That typically involves new marketing strategies, campaigns, and platforms.
Upfront Case Costs
Your firm will still operate under a contingency fee model even in a new practice area. That means paying out-of-pocket for case expenses while waiting months or years for a case to resolve. Litigation in unfamiliar areas may incur higher costs, especially in complex or technical fields requiring multiple expert witnesses, extensive discovery, or nationwide travel.
Technology and Infrastructure Investments
New practice areas may require updates to your case management system, client intake processes, or digital security protocols, especially if handling sensitive medical or employment records.
Maintaining Stability During Transition
Perhaps most importantly, you must ensure your current caseload and client service levels aren't disrupted while you shift attention and resources toward your expansion goals.
That's where a trusted financial partner becomes essential.
How Law Firm Financing Supports Strategic Growth
Advocate Capital's case expense financing was designed specifically for contingency-fee law firms. Instead of pulling from your operating capital or partner distributions to fund case expenses, our solution allows you to access capital as needed to cover case costs, without impacting your day-to-day cash flow.
Here's how our financing can help support your law firm's expansion:
Free Up Capital for Growth Initiatives
By financing your case costs with Advocate Capital, you retain more of your firm's working capital, capital that can then be reinvested in hiring, marketing, technology, or other growth strategies.
Reduce Financial Risk
Practice area diversification always involves a degree of risk. Financing can help reduce that risk by minimizing the personal or firm-level financial exposure that comes with funding cases in a new area of law.
Take on Higher-Cost Cases with Confidence
Some of the most impactful and profitable cases, especially in areas like medical malpractice or mass torts, are also the most expensive to litigate. With case expense financing, you don't have to pass on these opportunities due to budget constraints.
Scale Faster and Smarter
Rather than growing slowly over time as capital becomes available, financing gives you the ability to scale your new practice area more rapidly, while maintaining high-quality service for your existing clients.
Preserve Partner Distributions and Profit Margins
Using financing helps preserve after-tax profits, allowing partners to reinvest strategically or maintain income stability during periods of growth.
Real Law Firms. Real Growth.
Many of Advocate Capital's clients have used our case expense financing to support meaningful firm expansion. Case expense financing has played a key role in helping firms scale up efficiently without sacrificing quality or overstretching resources.
Whether you're branching out into a new practice area, entering a new geographic market, or preparing to grow your team, having access to flexible capital can make the difference between stalling and succeeding.
Ready to Expand Your Practice?
Growth requires strategy and financial support. If your law firm is ready to expand into new practice areas, Advocate Capital is here to help. With our case expense financing, you can:
- Pursue new types of litigation
- Diversify your client base
- Invest in long-term growth
- Take on more cases
- Stay financially stable along the way
Let us help you unlock your firm's next chapter.
To get started with case expense funding, fill out our application. If your firm is approved by our credit committee for our line of credit, you will then have the ability to reimburse yourself for the money spent on your cases by submitting a funding request through AdvoTrac®, our proprietary software platform. Interest is paid monthly on your line balance. When a case concludes, your firm will use the proceeds from the case to pay the principal borrowed for case expenses.
If implemented properly, the cost to your firm is next to nothing because AdvoTrac® allows you to track your case expense line of credit on a case-by-case basis to get reimbursed from your cases for 100% of the cost of our services on the cases that you win.
Reach out to learn more about how Advocate Capital's law firm financing solutions can support your expansion goals.
