Automated Debt-Collection Lawsuits Engulf Courts

[groovedaddy]

As millions of Americans have fallen behind on paying their bills, debt collection law firms have been clogging courtrooms with lawsuits seeking repayment.

Few have been as prolific as Cohen & Slamowitz, a Woodbury, N.Y., firm that has specialized in debt collection for nearly two decades. The firm has been filing roughly 80,000 lawsuits a year.

With just 14 lawyers on staff, that works out to more than 5,700 cases per lawyer.

How is that possible?

The answer to that question is at the heart of a growing debate over the increasing use of the nation’s legal system to collect on bad debts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/13collection.html?th&emc=th

[Lucian]

1. How do large corporations get out of paying their bad debts...

but "little people" like the average American is forced to pay their debts?

Instead of having the government bailing out big businesses, they should bale US out!

[uncommon]

2. While the factory line version of lawyering is icky, a lawsuit doesn't take long to draft --

all the attorney needs is the information on the debt, some brief history from the creditor, and away it goes.

Also, 14 attorneys is a lot - those attorneys could have teams of paralegals working under them who do the vast majority of the actual work. So this number actually doesn't surprise me at all.

I work in a 2 attorney firm and we have probably 500-600 clients at any given time. And we do lengthier civil cases and bankruptcies. There are 7 paralegals in my office. (And the second attorney is a newbie who only handles a few cases, so really it's a 1 attorney firm with a trainee.)

[sandnsea]

3. Interesting

I worked in two different 5 lawyer offices back in the 80s. That was just when paralegals were getting started, so we didn't have any. We had a receptionist, bookkeeper, and 3 legal secretaries. Do the lawyers even see the clients anymore, or do they see the paralegals for the most part?

[1monster]

4. Five to six hundred cases for one lawyer and this firm mentioned in the article

with fourteen lawyers files 80,000 plus cases per year? That's 5,714 law suits filed per lawyer per year. With no more evidence than the name, address, and social security number?

[Bitwit1234]

5. They have a company in Minnesota called

Jefferson something. I was searching for a telephone number on my caller ID on google and saw Minnesota and clicked on. The LED display is acting up and I couldn't read the number so I put in 123 133 143 and so on and came up with the number of this company. I don't remember the number because it wasn't the one I wanted. What I read was awesome. These people are supposed to buy debts that have been written off by companies, or those that are ready to expire on a credit report. Some don't even belong to a person. And they hound them. Giving them a song and dance about a credit card and a chance to rebuild credit. But what they do is automatically debit you with the debt and then can add interest if it is not paid off. And if they get the phone number of someone and another person has been issued that number they go right ahead, harass you and try to collect that person's debt. The don't take no for an answer. Most say just ignore them or file with the Federal Government because it is a scam. There are hundreds of lawsuits against them. Can you imagine the scams out there. I feel sorry for the unemployed who have to put up with these type of things.

And reporting to Do Not Call doesn't even protect you from telemarketers what in the heck do you think happens to these kind.

[groovedaddy]

6. Leeches! n.t

[FBI_Un_Sub]

7. We had a trial judge who got elected to the Supreme Court by disciplining these shysters

Judge Nick Papadakos from Pittsburgh -- during the death roll of steel. As steel workers were being permanently laid off the vultures circles -- and Nick went after them.

[pscot]

8. Maybe tort reform isn't such a bad idea

The devil would be in the details.

[bemildred]

9. Sort of like spam litigation.

Or maybe it should be litigation spam.

[Heywood J]

10. That's one firm alone filing 220 lawsuits per day...

When you start to consider other firms in NY alone, this amounts to thousands of lawsuits filed every day. These kinds of numbers should have made some judges take notice and start to consider whether any of them were vexatious or extortionist in nature. The system needs to examine the workings of firms that exceed a particular threshold per lawyer on staff. It also appears that higher court fees and filing fees are in order for those who file litigation in bulk.