When I started this blog fifteen years ago, lawsuits were the last thing on my mind. I didn’t see anything wrong with looking for investment opportunities and trying to grow my retirement savings so I could retire early. I just wanted to retire at the same time as my wife who would be eligible for her military pension in 15 years.

There’s still nothing with that. However, an acquaintance tried to sell my wife on some $45 pyramid scheme juice. When I wrote about this personal experience and went down a rabbit hole of MLM scams, things got ugly. Google decided my articles were very good and should be shown to many people. MLM companies decided that they had to protect what is known as their “Google storefront” or the first page of their search results. They didn’t have the legal budget to go after Google, but they could sue me and take advantage of a loophole in the legal system. It’s expensive to defend yourself against a defamation lawsuit, regardless of whether the lawsuit has merit or not. The loophole has a name Strategic lawsuit against public participation

Most people don’t have $30,000 in cash to defend against a lawsuit. I didn’t. I was openly publishing my financial journey and how almost all the money was going to retirement to maximize that sweet, sweet compound interest.

That’s a long introduction to what I wanted to discuss today, personal injury legal funding. I’ve been lucky enough to not have to deal with a personal injury. I wish I had a better non-lawyer sounding term than “personal injury”, but I think you know what I mean… a car accident or something like that.

If you find yourself in personal injury lawsuit situation, you can find yourself in court for a long time. I spent 3-4 years in court for each of the MLMs suing me. Courts are so slow, you’ll appreciate Judge Judy, trust me. You might find yourself in a situation where it is difficult or impossible to wait years for the courts to decide if your case has merit. Even trying to settle can take years as both sides want to feel out the courts and test the waters to see if they may win.

During these years, your money may be on the line. If you are injured you may not be able to work. If you have to pay a lawyer, there might not room in your budget to put food on the table. It’s a tough situation any way you slice it.

That’s where personal injury legal funding comes in. These companies are willing to give you money to fight the fight. Now they wouldn’t be a company if they just gave the money away. They lend the money after evaluating whether you’ll win the case for big payoff. If you win, they take their percentage. If you lose, they’ll take nothing and you essentially got the legal funding for free. (If you are going to lose, it’s kind of nice to not be burdened by huge legal fees.)

As I mentioned before I didn’t know this existed… and fortunately, I don’t need legal funding. I learned about all this from Uplift Legal Funding who emailed me to tell me about it.

I hope none of you need legal funding, but if you do, maybe you’ll remember this article and it will help your situation.