Are there unsecured working capital options for law firms, or is security required?

Unsecured working capital is widely available to UK law firms, especially established LLPs and incorporated solicitor practices with clean trading histories. Personal guarantees from partners or directors are almost always required, but charges over the practice itself or over personal property are usually not.

The most common unsecured route for solicitor practices is a fintech term loan: iwoca flexi-loans up to £500,000, Funding Circle terms loans £25,000 to £500,000, and Fleximize for borrowers needing flexibility on repayment structure. All three soft-search at quote, take a personal guarantee from controlling partners, and do not require a debenture for tickets up to roughly £150,000.

Above £250,000 the picture shifts. Bank lenders like Allica Bank, Shawbrook and Aldermore typically take an All Assets Debenture (a fixed and floating charge over company assets) for larger unsecured facilities. The PG remains. A debenture is technically still unsecured against personal property: it is a charge on the firm, not the partner's house. But it does limit the firm's ability to grant later security to other lenders without consent.

Where the firm has client account exposure, legal aid contracts with longer payment cycles, or a sub-2-year trading history, expect security to be tightened: occasional commercial mortgage charge against the practice premises, occasional fixed charge over specific receivables. Truly secured-only finance for law firms is rare unless the firm has had recent adverse history.

See do you support law firms with high legal aid exposure or longer panel payment terms for the legal-aid-specific question.