Customer FAQ

A Justice For Me (JFM) line of credit is a payment solution for your legal expenses. As your attorney completes work and sends invoices, JFM pays the attorney directly on your behalf.

If your attorney is not part of the JFM network, please review the list of JFM eligible states. If JFM serves clients in the state where you reside, please ask your attorney to contact us through our website. We are happy to work with your attorney to have them join our network and be able to offer affordable monthly payment plans.

Currently, we can offer a line of credit to clients who reside in any of the following 24 states. However, we are expanding all the time so please reach out if you don’t see your state on the list.

• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Kansas
• Massachusetts
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

You won’t pay anything upfront. Attorneys join the JFM network to offer their clients affordable monthly payment plans free of upfront payments or retainers.

With the JFM line of credit, the minimum amount you can borrow is $1,000 and the maximum is $50,000.

To meet the minimum eligibility requirements for a JFM line of credit, you must be a US citizen or permanent resident, 18 years or older, and reside in one of our eligible states. Eligibility also depends on a number of additional factors, such as a responsible financial history, credit score, monthly income, monthly expenses, and employment history.

All JFM services are provided electronically, so we require that all clients have a valid email account.

Once your application has been completed, the verification and review process is usually accomplished within one business day. In some cases, a coapplicant will be requested in order to finish processing the application.

This varies depending on the amount borrowed. For an average line of credit of $5,000, the monthly payment is approximately $310.

JFM offers a 10% interest rate with a term of 24 months.

If you make all your payments on time and pay off your balance within 12 months, JFM will refund the interest you have paid.

No. We want to make things simple for our clients, so we have no origination fees, closing costs, or prepayment penalties.

A JFM line of credit is used solely for the purpose of paying your legal expenses and is advanced as legal costs are incurred. This means you only pay interest on the amounts as your attorney bills you, not the entire amount of the line of credit from the approval date as you would see with a personal loan. Also, JFM lines of credit are closed-end, which means payments made on the line of credit do not replenish the available credit as you would see with a credit card.

The JFM line of credit is a closed-end, unsecured line of credit. This means you do not need to provide collateral to secure the line of credit.

After your attorney initiates a JFM application, if you choose to continue your application, we will request your full credit report from one or more consumer reporting agencies. This is considered a “hard” credit pull which can impact your credit score.

Credit history is an important part of the credit evaluation process. However, you may be eligible for a line of credit by obtaining a coapplicant to support your request. We do require that you are able to afford the monthly payment before a coapplicant will be requested.

Yes. Potential clients may be eligible by obtaining a coapplicant to support their lack of credit history.  We do require the client be able to afford the monthly payments before a coapplicant will be requested. With some legal cases, such as most criminal cases, a coapplicant may be required, regardless of the creditworthiness of the client.

When our Underwriting team reviews your application and requests a coapplicant for your line of credit, you will receive an email with a link for adding your coapplicant.  Then simply click the Add a Co-Applicant prompt in the email, and this will take you to the JFM portal where you can enter your coapplicant’s name and email address to initiate their application. Your coapplicant will then receive an email with a link to complete their application. The coapplicant will not be able to see any of the information you have entered, nor will you be able to see their information.

A coapplicant, cosigner, or coborrower are essentially the same thing, just at different points in the process. Once a line of credit is approved, a coapplicant becomes a coborrower or cosigner. All account signers, regardless of label, are equally responsible for the repayment of the line of credit.

JFM reviews multiple factors in our underwriting process, and both applicants and coapplicants are evaluated in this process. Unfortunately, there are times when we cannot extend credit. When this occurs, an Adverse Action Notice is sent to all applicants providing the reasons the credit was not approved. This notice also allows each party to obtain a free copy of their credit report to ensure their credit information is being reported accurately.

Yes. You and your coborrower are jointly responsible for making the loan payments. Keep in mind, the payment history is reported monthly to the credit bureaus for each signer as well.