Streamline legal operations with disbursement financing capabilities, real-time reporting tools, and Expert Search, unified in a single secure platform
This article was produced in partnership with BridgePoint Financial.
When Missy Yeboah left Toronto’s boutique law firm scene, she wasn’t walking away from the practice side of the business — she was on a mission to make it better.
With a front row seat as a law clerk, Yeboah experienced firsthand the logistical strain legal professionals face, especially those in contingency fee-based practices. Armed with that on-the-ground knowledge and the certainty that cumbersome workflows could be simplified via the right technology, she pivoted to the litigation funding side of the business.
Coming aboard BridgePoint Financial, a legal finance company known for its forward-thinking culture and specialized financial tools, Yeboah played a central role in building its tech infrastructure for their law firm clients. The ever-moving goal post — then and now — is to understand implicitly what would make practitioners’ tasks easier and provide them with the information they need in an efficient way.
“BridgePoint allowed me the freedom to innovate,” explains Yeboah, now Vice President of Client Services. “While staying responsive to the market, we’re able to experiment with different technologies to see what truly delivers value. That process is guided by direct input from our law firm clients and the plaintiffs they represent. We focus on designing solutions that resonate with them and meet their day-to-day practice needs.”
BridgePoint Portal ‘truly a one-stop shop’
Alongside internal stakeholders and BridgePoint’s IT team, Yeboah was integral in developing their online portal, and she calls it “truly a one-stop shop.”
“It equips users with comprehensive, end-to-end support for file management,” she says. “The portal offers a suite of tools designed to support law firms in building their files – from disbursement funding to providing seamless access to a searchable database of expert profiles, across a variety of specialists in every discipline. Everything firms need is centralized, efficient, and more importantly, immediately accessible.”
The secure platform gives law firms real-time insight into its File Funder and Expert Access disbursement funding balances, allowing the law firm to manage existing loans or request more funds. It also lets them transact directly, which streamlines the process for the firm as well as for BridgePoint’s team.
A critical differentiator is the portal’s ability to remove manual steps that once slowed down critical processes. One example is the Expert Search tool, which Yeboah describes as a LinkedIn-style database of hundreds of medical, legal, financial, and engineering experts. This value-added feature allows firms to view expert CVs, sample reports, court qualifications, and even whether their work leans toward plaintiff or defence.
The best part of Expert Access? Payment is deferred for two years, taking away the pressure of upfront costs.
But BridgePoint doesn’t stop at offering the database and initially covering the report — it also acts as a matchmaking service, pairing firms with the experts they require. Yeboah thinks back to her days of clerking where she’d hunt for appropriate experts and can appreciate on a personal level how the Expert Search tool simplifies a significant portion of that process.
“The portal offers users a centralized database of industry experts to explore, making it easy to review and compare options before selecting the most appropriate expert for a specific file,” she says. “It adds a layer of due diligence to the process and empowers law firms to advance their cases more efficiently.”
Launched several years ago, the online portal has undergone constant iterations. From enhancing usability to integrating it more deeply with the technology firms are using, “we’re constantly in development,” confirms Tim Andrews, Chief Business Development Officer.
Andrews points to the introduction of BP Pay, a new feature that enables real-time payments and takes away the need to cut cheques and rely on traditional mail. There is also the implementation of SMS messaging to update applicants on the status of their applications, as communication remains key. Both underpin BridgePoint’s mission to improve the plaintiff and law firm experience by responding quickly to their needs.
“The fact that the portal is self-serve makes the speed unmatched; they can do so much without going through multiple channels to get the answers they need,” he says, adding that the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. They don’t have to call for balances in the middle of a mediation or a pre-trial discussion, for example, because everything they need is at their fingertips.
A strategic ally for access to justice
The automation of loan management and expert sourcing is a game-changer across the board — and BridgePoint works with many of Canada’s largest firms — but specifically so for sole practitioners or other leaner litigation teams. This impact is intensified if they take advantage of both the funding and the technology.
“The online portal means faster decisions, easier access to funding, and less administrative back-and-forth, resulting in enhanced client service. This is all while reducing the time it takes to advance a case — and we know time is money.”
Seeing their technology as an equalizer for smaller practices is a full circle moment for the BridgePoint team. Its commitment to innovation is rooted in a broader mission: supporting access to justice. The lawyers the company works with are often up against Goliaths, Andrews notes, and they need support to go up against these massive entities.
“We started our business based on that premise and it continues to this day,” Andrews says. “If we can streamline and optimize their process, we’re assisting with that mandate. Equipping lawyers with the technology and the financial means to advocate effectively for their clients — it all stems back to our origin story.”
Built for today, ready for tomorrow
And there’s no end in sight when it comes to delivering efficiencies: the BridgePoint team is already leveraging AI, incorporating it into the underwriting process to review and summarize documentation. BridgePoint is also actively exploring API integrations to ensure seamless connection with firms’ existing systems — a move that could make the portal a central hub for all disbursement-related operations.
“We’re already ahead of the curve,” Andrews adds. “Some of the more tech-forward firms are already on board, and the rest of the industry is catching up.”
For lawyers on increasingly complex cases, tighter timelines, and facing the ever-present pressure to deliver results, BridgePoint offers solutions that are constantly elevated to exceed expectations.
“At the end of the day, what we want to ensure is that we're providing quick, seamless, and easy solutions,” says Yeboah, adding they’re always keeping their ears to the ground to ensure they’re offering services and tools that make sense to the lawyers they serve.
“We’re here to do what we can to allow lawyers to move their files forward, get their settlements, and focus more on what matters most — their clients.”
