Yes. You need to be represented. California's Consumer Legal Funding Act requires a written attorney acknowledgment in the funding contract, and the contract must require you or your attorney to notify the funding company of the outcome of your claim.
Why representation is required
The practical reason is that the funding company is taking risk on a legal claim, and a claim being handled by a lawyer on contingency is a claim a professional has already evaluated.
The legal reason is that the statute builds your attorney into the transaction. The acknowledgment and the outcome-notification requirement both assume counsel is in place.
What your attorney does and doesn't do
Your attorney acknowledges the funding and handles the payoff from the proceeds. They may also review the contract with you, and you should ask them to.
What they don't do is take instructions from the funding company. California law bars a funding company from influencing settlement decisions or conditioning funding on a consumer changing counsel.
The firewall between your lawyer and the funder
The Act also prohibits referral fees and commissions between funding companies and attorneys or law firms, and bars an attorney retained by a consumer, or that attorney's immediate family, from holding a financial interest in a consumer legal funding company.
If anyone suggests a funding company paid for your referral, that arrangement is not permitted.
If you don't have a lawyer yet
Then funding isn't available to you yet, and a funding company is not the right place to look for one. Green Light does not refer cases to attorneys. The State Bar of California maintains a public lawyer referral service directory.
This page describes the statute in general terms and is not legal advice.
Talk to Green Light
Green Light Legal Funding, LLC is a California consumer legal funding company based in Beverly Hills, serving eligible personal injury plaintiffs with claims pending in California.
Call 310-303-1858 or request funding. There's no cost to ask and no obligation.
More on Personal injury legal funding.