Company

Legal departments of all sizes - from startups to Fortune 500s - use Lawtrades’ tech-enabled platform to hire world-class legal talent and efficiently scale their outside counsel.

Opportunity

Within contingent staffing, timely payments for completed work are crucial to keeping the supply-side of the talent marketplace engaged and satisfied. However, for platforms servicing mid-market and enterprise clients, payment terms are a constant issue as large companies expect 30-90+ day terms on their accounts payable.

To balance expectations on both sides of the marketplace, Lawtrades was determined to offer early payouts to legal talent while allowing clients to pay within industry-standard net terms. This mismatch in payment timing caused an inherent cash flow gap that Lawtrades had to manage from their own balance sheet, causing constraints around growth and working capital.

Why OatFi?

Lawtrades recognized an opportunity to solve this working capital challenge by partnering with an embedded working capital provider who could manage the float required to finance 30-90 days of their accounts receivable, enabling them to pay their legal talent well in advance of receiving client funds.

Of equal importance, Lawtrades wanted to enhance the customer experience for both sides of their platform, avoiding the friction associated with traditional lenders, such as notices of assignment, and a third party making disbursements to payees.

With OatFi, Lawtrades found a partner that could support both their payments, credit and user experience requirements via an API-first solution directly integrated into the Lawtrades platform.

Solution

With OatFi, Lawtrades developed a cutting-edge embedded net terms solution that automatically underwrites clients for credit terms as soon as they onboard onto the Lawtrades platform.

Once invoices are submitted to clients for completed work, OatFi programmatically funds Lawtrades payout accounts in real-time, enabling them to pay their legal talent promptly, removing the working capital burden from their platform’s balance sheet.

Results

With net terms, Lawtrades has transformed its payments offering. Clients can pay on flexible terms, while Lawtrades is able to optimize its working capital position and legal talent is paid promptly.

This strategic partnership has unlocked business growth for both Lawtrades and its end users.