The letter got them to call. Financing lets them say yes.

A Leads For Lawyers letter solves the hardest problem in legal marketing: it puts your firm's name in the defendant's hands the day their record is created, before they've searched for anyone. The defendant calls. They need representation, they want your firm — and then the consultation reaches the number, and the retainer is more cash than they can produce this week.

That call didn't fail because the marketing failed or the client was unqualified. It failed on liquidity. A defendant facing a charge has a deadline, not a savings account — and every defense attorney has watched a retainable case walk out over the gap between what representation costs and what the client can pay today.

Firms have historically bridged that gap with in-house payment plans, which quietly turn the firm into a lender: monthly invoicing, collections, and the write-off when a client stops paying. Legal fee financing moves that entire function to a third party — which is why it belongs in the conversion plan of any firm doing serious client acquisition.

The two options covered here — Clio Pay Later and MyCase Pay Later — are built into the two practice-management platforms many defense firms already run, and both are powered by Affirm, the third-party lender. The mechanics are the same in outline: the client applies through a secure link, Affirm makes a real-time eligibility decision, and if approved, the firm receives the approved fee upfront, less a per-transaction processing fee.

From there the client's repayment relationship is with Affirm, not with the firm. If the client later misses installments or defaults, that is Affirm's risk — the firm keeps what it was paid and never chases a balance. Both options support payments into operating and trust accounts, and neither debits its fees from a trust account.

Approval is never guaranteed; it is decided entirely by the lender, per client, at application time. What the firm controls is whether the option exists at all when the caller from your market says the words every defense attorney knows: "How much is this going to cost?"

Clio is one of the most widely used legal practice-management platforms, and Pay Later is its built-in legal fee financing option, powered by Affirm. It finances fees from $50 to $30,000, with the firm paying a 4.95% transaction fee — a fee the firm absorbs and cannot pass to the client.

Approved funds typically reach the firm's account within 2–3 business days. Clients repay Affirm directly in monthly or biweekly installments, at rates currently ranging from 10%–36% APR depending on eligibility. The $50 floor is notably low — it covers everything from a filing fee to a full felony retainer.

Current terms are published on Clio's Pay Later page.

MyCase is a practice-management platform known for its simplicity, popular with solo and small firms, with payments processed through LawPay. Its Pay Later option is powered by Affirm, through LawPay, financing fees from $150 to $30,000 with a 5.95% per-transaction fee paid by the firm.

Funds settle by ACH within 1–5 business days. Clients choose repayment over 3, 6, 12, 18, or 24 months, at 0%–36% APR depending on eligibility — and qualified clients can see 0% offers. One boundary worth knowing: MyCase Pay Later is available to individual clients only, not businesses — which for a criminal-defense practice is no boundary at all.

Current terms are published on MyCase's Pay Later documentation.

If your firm already runs one of the two platforms, the decision is made: activate the financing option you already have. Changing practice-management systems to save one point of transaction fee is a bad trade. For firms choosing fresh, the differences that matter are below.

Financing and same-day direct mail compound each other. The letter creates the call while the case is hours old; financing removes the reason the call stalls. A firm running both isn't just reaching defendants first — it's the firm whose consultation ends in a signed agreement instead of "let me see what I can borrow."

The sequence is short. Activate Pay Later inside your Clio or MyCase account and complete the provider's enrollment. Then obtain the lender-approved language for promoting financing — Affirm and the platforms require that firms use approved wording in marketing materials, and your own state bar's advertising rules apply to every word your campaign mails. Once your firm has that approved language, Leads For Lawyers can incorporate it into your letters and brochures, so the defendant learns a payment option may exist before they ever pick up the phone.

From there the flow runs itself: the record is harvested, the letter goes out same-day, the call comes in, the consultation happens, and when the fee is the obstacle, the client applies through your secure link. If Affirm approves and the client retains you, the fee lands in your account and the client pays the lender — while your next day's letters are already at the mail house.