We strongly prefer to resolve debt collection matters without going to court and we do this on over 97% of our successful claims. However, we do not hesitate to go to court when that is the only viable or acceptable alternative. As a result, we are filing lawsuits on a regular basis.
In-House Attorney
When necessary, we do a full out-of-court debt collection effort under the name of our in-house law firm at our same low contingency rates. There is no up-front cost for this effort and there is no change in our contingency rates. Our in house law office gets involved when we are not making the necessary progress while collecting under collection agency name. Often, just telling the debtor that their file will be sent to the attorney if a resolution is not reached is enough to motivate them. With some people, they just don’t take things seriously until they are contacted by an attorney. In either of these cases, our clients have the benefit of not having to experience higher costs to get an attorney involved. In addition, we don’t hesitate to escalate a file to the law office because our financial incentives are unchanged. Collection agencies that do not have an in-house law office are hesitant to refer to outside attorneys because they will earn less and may have to charge their clients a higher contingency rate. Our in-house law firm does not file lawsuits. Instead, we have developed a nationwide network of collection attorneys who specialize in litigation and judgment collection in their jurisdictions. Our attorneys manage these independent law firms throughout the litigation and judgment collection process. We solve over 97% of our successful cases without going to court. We never litigate without our client’s written permission.
Collection Litigation
We have developed a network of debt collection attorneys all over the United States who will work for us on a contingency basis. In most cases, the lawsuit needs to be filed where the debtor is located which necessitates having this network. Having debt collection attorneys who will work on a contingency basis gives our clients a huge advantage when litigation is required. It allows us to keep the costs low for our clients while debtors will have to pay their attorneys on an hourly basis. This typically puts significant pressure on the debtor to resolve the matter or alternatively, allow us to get a default judgment and then proceed to the judgment collection phase.
We never litigate without the client’s written instructions to proceed to court. We get you a firm quote based on the specifics of your particular claim.
We believe that the primary factor to evaluate when considering going to court is Return on Investment. There are some costs involved in going to court, as explained in our video and transcript on debt collection litigation. We carefully evaluate the potential costs and the likelihood of actually collecting to help our clients understand the potential return on investment for debt collection litigation and we compare this to the other alternatives available. We use a simple equation during this analysis process, as shown in the example below:
We carefully evaluate each of these variables before providing our clients with a recommendation and the analysis behind that recommendation. Estimating the likelihood of collecting is the most difficult part of this. We explain many of the factors we consider in this easy to read debt collection litigation graphic that has been published in industry newsletters.
We manage the litigation process and the debt collection attorneys for our clients and provide recommendations at each step along the way.
Judgment Collection
Winning the lawsuit (which we do 99.9% of the time) is just the first step. Once we have a judgment we have to collect.
The judgment collection process is explained in our video and transcript.
We manage the debt collection attorneys and the judgment collection process for our clients. We use our experience to make sure that the proper steps are being taken within the appropriate time frames. We evaluate all alternatives for our clients and give recommendations on how to proceed. Our in house attorney works closely with our network of collection attorneys as required by each individual case.
We do not accept claims where a judgment has already been obtained. We only provide judgment collection services on claims where we initially provided debt collection services and agreed with the client that litigation was the appropriate alternative given what happened during the collection process. We do have a referral system on our website if you already have a judgment. Fill out the form and mark the box that you already have a judgment and you will get the names and contact information of other agencies who may be interested in assisting you.
