After Nickolas and Heather Stearns hired Brian Loncar & Associates of Dallas in 2010 to represent them in a personal-injury suit stemming from an automobile accident, they “borrow[ed]” some money from a “ lending company.”

But, according to their Nov. 27 petition filed against Dallas lawyer Brian Loncar, Loncar & Associates, Brian Loncar PC, Settlement Advance Funding Enterprises LLC (SAFE), and Fuerte Rios Funding LLC, the Stearnses did not know then that the lending company was “wholly or in part owned by the defendants.”