No. Pennsylvania Rule of Professional Conduct 1.8(e) does not let a lawyer advance you money for rent, groceries, or any other living expense while your case is pending. The only exception is money to run the case itself: filing fees, expert reports, deposition costs.
Go Philly Funding is a direct funder based in Philadelphia, and this is one of the first questions people search before they know pre-settlement funding exists. If money is tight, you can't pay your rent, or you have no income right now, a no from your lawyer is not about you.
Why Can't My Lawyer Just Front Me the Money?
It is not that your lawyer does not want to help. Rule 1.8(e) exists because lending you money for living expenses would give your lawyer, in the rule's words, too great a financial stake in the litigation.
Fronting the cost of the case itself is different. Filing fees, expert reports, and deposition transcripts are treated differently because, as the rule puts it, those advances are virtually indistinguishable from contingent fees and help ensure access to the courts. Covering your rent is a different kind of risk, and that is where the rule draws the line.
Is This the Same in New Jersey?
Yes. New Jersey's version of this rule, RPC 1.8(e), carries the same two exceptions: court costs and litigation expenses, yes; living expenses, no. Go Philly Funding also funds cases in Camden, Gloucester, Burlington, and Mercer counties, so the answer does not change on either side of the Delaware River.
Why Is This Taking So Long?
Part of why this comes up is timing. A standard personal injury case in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas runs on roughly a 19-month trial track from filing, an expedited case about 13, a complex one up to 25. The first case management conference usually falls around 90 days after filing, with the settlement conference 6 to 12 months after that.
If you are still injured and cannot work and it feels like things are dragging on, that is not in your head. Roughly 8,000 to 10,600 cases are active at any time in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas major civil jury program, which the court says is mostly motor vehicle and premises injury cases, and most civil cases resolve before trial. Even that takes months.
What Are My Actual Options Right Now?
Nobody can tell you what's right without knowing your case, but here is what people in this position generally weigh:
- Savings, if you have any left. They cost nothing to use, so they usually come first.
- Settling early. This gets money to you fastest, but the cost is what you give up: the value your claim would reach once fully developed.
- Credit cards or personal loans. Both are repaid whether your case is successful or not. That is the opposite of what pre-settlement funding is.
- Pre-settlement funding. Not a loan. It is non-recourse: you have no personal obligation to repay Go Philly Funding from your own assets or income if your case is not successful. It only becomes available once you have an attorney and an active case, since we coordinate directly with your lawyer to review it.
What This Means for You
If you don't have a lawyer yet, that comes first. None of these options, including pre-settlement funding, are available without one. If you do have a lawyer and the gap is real, weigh what you already have before what's available to you: savings first, then an honest look at what settling early would cost against what waiting costs now. Pre-settlement funding is one more option on that list, not the first, and it only makes sense once your case is underway.