The right tool depends on where you are in the Florida timeline. Defense lawyers win at one set of moments. Settlement firms win at the other 80%. Picking wrong costs months and tens of thousands.
Both are useful. Neither is universal. Use the matrix to figure out which one you actually need.
The right tool changes hour by hour. Here is who wins at each stage and why.
A Florida merchant whose first MCA debit fails has 48–72 hours before the rest of the stack tries to follow. The first call should be to a workout firm to map the file and pause the bleed, not to a defense attorney waiting for a complaint to land.
Default notices are leverage tools, not court papers. They are negotiated, not litigated. A settlement firm answers them with a counter-offer and a reconciliation demand; an attorney answers them with a retainer invoice.
A UCC-1 against AR is solved by paying or negotiating into a termination, not by suing the filer. If a funder refuses to file the UCC-3 after settlement, we can refer you to an independent attorney to compel it.
When a Confession of Judgment is entered against a Florida merchant, vacating it is a court motion, and only a licensed attorney can do that work. You retain independent counsel for the court filing; we negotiate the underlying contract in parallel so the two tracks move together.
If a funder asserts fraud, or you want the contract recharacterized as a usurious loan, that is attorney work. We can refer you to an independent attorney to handle the litigation. We sequence the rest of the stack while the contested position is briefed in court.
Defense lawyers and settlement firms work the same legal terrain. Knowing the local terrain decides who you call first.
Federal venue for diversity-jurisdiction MCA disputes and removed cases.
Most state-court MCA actions land here when the contract specifies state forum.
Local enforcement of judgments, garnishments, and lien proceedings across the state.
Delancey Street is a business debt settlement firm. We are not a law firm and we do not provide legal advice or legal representation. For the great majority of Florida MCAn engagements, the work that resolves the file is commercial negotiation, contract review for business terms, sequencing, and creditor coordination, not motion practice. That is the work a senior advisor does every day.
When a file truly needs an attorney, a Confession of Judgment to vacate, a fraud claim to defend, a bankruptcy evaluation, we can refer you to independent attorneys we’ve worked alongside. You retain that attorney directly. They remain an independent professional, and the attorney-client relationship is between you and them, not Delancey Street.
The owner pays a fixed, agreed price for the workout, and pays the independent attorney separately only for the court work that genuinely requires one, instead of paying a defense litigator hourly to do work that does not require a courtroom.
TL;DR Florida is the most concentrated MCA broker market in the country and has the second-strongest homestead protection. It also has the worst-translated boilerplate defense content of any state. Here's what's actually true if you operate in Florida.
Florida's criminal-usury cap is 25% and civil cap is 18% (Ch. 687). Many defense pages dismiss usury arguments on the ground that MCAs are sales rather than loans. Whether Ch. 687 bears on a given contract is a legal question, and where it can become relevant is when a contract structurally fails the sale-versus-loan test (no reconciliation, accelerated on bankruptcy, fixed term). Florida state courts have at times been more willing than New York's to consider recharacterization. Whether a given contract crosses that line, and how a particular Florida judge is likely to view it, is a legal question for a licensed Florida attorney. For Delancey Street as a settlement firm, the practical point is simpler: a contract with loan-like structure tends to be priced differently in commercial negotiation than a clean revenue-purchase agreement.
Florida's Article X, § 4 protects the homestead with no value cap (up to half-acre urban, 160 acres rural). Like Texas, this changes the personal-guaranty enforcement math. Funders aware of Florida homestead protection often price files lower at settlement than they would for a non-homesteaded owner. Most defense pages mention homestead only in passing. The settlement framing Delancey Street works with is "what is realistically collectible after the homestead is accounted for, and let's settle the contract balance accordingly." That is not a legal argument or legal advice; it is a commercial conversation informed by how Florida property law generally works.
The 2022-2024 Yellowstone Capital litigation cycle reshaped the South Florida MCA industry. Many brokers that operated under Yellowstone's umbrella migrated to new aggregator names in Miami-Dade and Broward. Contracts coming out of post-Yellowstone shops have often been redrafted to clear LG Funding-style recharacterization tests, but their collection practices are sometimes the same as before. Some are aggressive enough to raise questions under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA, § 559.72). Whether that statute applies to a particular commercial situation is a legal question for an attorney; Delancey Street simply notes that the issue comes up more often than most defense pages suggest, and a licensed Florida lawyer is the right person to evaluate it.
Florida's Sunbiz corporate registry and UCC filing system is one of the most accessible in the country. Pre-engagement, Delancey Street can pull every UCC-1 filed against a Florida merchant in minutes and reconcile it against the funder list the merchant gives us. We have found "ghost" UCC filings, funders the merchant forgot about or assumed were terminated, within hours of intake. This is a workout and diligence step, not legal work, but it changes the negotiation sequence entirely.
Florida's unauthorized-practice-of-law enforcement is among the most aggressive in the country. Out-of-state attorneys representing Florida merchants on Florida collection actions need careful licensing arrangements, and a settlement firm like Delancey Street does not practice law in Florida or anywhere else. The appropriate path for a Florida merchant who needs litigation handled is a licensed Florida attorney, retained directly by the merchant. Delancey Street handles the commercial negotiation and can refer independent Florida counsel; the attorney-client relationship is between the merchant and that attorney. Many "national MCA defense" landing pages do not disclose this distinction.
The 11th Circuit has not adopted the LG Funding framework wholesale, and Florida federal courts have at times had more analytical room on recharacterization than 2nd Circuit courts. Funder counsel is aware of this. Whether a particular dispute is better positioned in Florida state court or in federal court, including any question of removal, is a legal-strategy decision that belongs to a licensed Florida attorney evaluating that specific file. It is not something a settlement firm decides or advises on. Delancey Street raises the point only so a merchant knows it is a real question to ask independent counsel.
Florida is a state where leverage hides in the property law (homestead), the corporate registry (Sunbiz), and the federal circuit's posture on recharacterization. Much of the work that matters in a workout happens before a complaint is filed. When an engagement needs Florida-licensed litigation, an independent Florida attorney is the right call, and Delancey Street can refer one.
For most files, no. Negotiated settlements close every day without an attorney on retainer. Lawyers add value at specific inflection points (COJ vacatur, summary judgment defense, fraud claims). The rest of the timeline is workout work. Delancey Street does not provide legal advice; when one of those moments lands, we can refer you to an independent attorney.
In Florida, hourly rates for commercial-litigation attorneys typically run $300–$550, with retainers in the $5K–15K range. Hourly bills can run open-ended through discovery, motion practice, and trial. Delancey Street's fee, by contrast, is fixed and agreed up front, with no hourly meter.
When the engagement has not been filed yet, when you have multiple positions to coordinate, when payroll is the binding constraint, and when the funder is willing to negotiate. Putting an attorney on retainer in those situations burns cash that should go toward settlement reserves.
Yes. We are a business debt settlement firm, not a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice or legal representation. When a matter requires a court filing, a COJ to vacate, a summary judgment to defend, a fraud claim, we can refer you to independent attorneys we've worked alongside. You retain that attorney directly; they remain independent of Delancey Street.
That is one of the moments where you do want an attorney. Vacating a COJ is a court filing; only a licensed attorney can do it. We can refer you to an independent attorney for that piece, and we run the settlement workout on the rest of the stack in parallel so the legal defense and the negotiation move together.
A 30-minute call. A senior advisor reviews your stack, flags where you may actually want an independent attorney, and walks through workout options for the rest. No retainer. No sales pitch. Not legal advice.
Delancey Street is a business debt settlement and resolution firm. It is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice or legal representation. The information on this page is general, for educational purposes only, and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. When a matter requires legal representation, we may refer you to independent attorneys. Any such attorney is retained directly by you, and the attorney-client relationship is between you and that attorney. The independent attorney is not employed by, controlled by, or acting on behalf of Delancey Street.