Disbursements for law firms

Disbursements may be a contentious issue for any law firms. Your clients might raise their eyes about the large sum that might appear under that heading when you present your final account. And for the firm itself, significant sums may need to be spent on disbursements before there is any chance of recovering that expenditure from the client.

For many law firms, therefore, it may be easy to see how disbursements present all the ingredients for cashflow shortages and difficulties.

Disbursements

So, what are disbursements for law firms?

Disbursements involve payments to third parties which are necessary for completing the work a client has instructed you to do. In many instances, these are relatively small amounts – for, say, the serving of documents or fees paid to the court – but they are necessary for so many of the instructions you accept that the amount rapidly mounts up.

On top of these regular, usually small disbursements, there may also be major expenditure on the commissioning of investigations and the completion of reports by experts on behalf of your clients.

As the website Compact Law, suggests there are also areas where there is a hazier distinction between disbursements and the typical operating costs likely to be incurred by any firm of solicitors. Day to day photocopying of documents and postage is an example of some of the overhead costs likely to be incurred by any business. But if you need to do an unusually large amount of copying for a particular client, that cost might be counted as a disbursement.

In any event, your expenditure on disbursements – the cost of which you are unlikely to recover until you eventually invoice the client – may represent a significant strain on your cashflow.

Professions loans

A readily arranged and straightforward loan – in which we specialise here at Professions Loans – may provide a suitable answer to such temporary cashflow problems and shortfalls.

The amount you need to borrow of course depends on the particular circumstances of your firm, but we are able to arrange any amount from £5,000 to £1 million or more – leaving you the choice as to exactly how it is spent. The larger the amount, of course, the more you may be able to do with the additional funding. Not only might it be used in the management of any shortfall in cashflow, but for major projects such as investment in new offices and office technology, or even acquisitions of other law firms in your area.

Since these are unsecured loans, you are not required to secure the advance against the firm’s assets or the personal assets of its partners, so these are not put at risk. Yet unsecured borrowing arranged by us at Professions Loans continues to be offered at some of the most competitive rates in the market.

Repayment terms are similarly structured with the financial constraints of your law firm in mind – with terms of anything from three months to up to five years over which to spread the repayments.

We recognise that you are working in an increasingly fast-moving world, in which standing still is not an option, and there is a need to be able to respond more or less immediately to the demands generated by your clients. When you need to borrow, therefore, we make sure that the application process is as streamlined and as responsive as possible – from your initial online enquiry, through acceptance in principle, a formal application and the rapid transfer of the funds you have requested directly to the firm’s bank account.

We prize the creation of longstanding business relationships in which our customers may place their full confidence and trust.