If someone owes you or your business money and you have been unsuccessful in getting them to pay, our law firm may be able to help you. Over the years, Bodwin & Associates, P.C., has done collection work for individuals as well as for businesses. Because we do our collection work on a contingency basis (in other words, you only pay us our fee if we are able to collect the debt), the financial risk to you is small (you would be responsible for the filing fee, service of process, etc). Since collections are regulated by state and federal law, it is important that these laws are closely followed to avoid further legal difficulty. Therefore, if someone owes you money, it would be an excellent idea for you to enlist the assistance of an attorney who is familiar with collections law.

We generally begin a collections case by writing to the debtor and requesting immediate payment. If the debtor pays, then our attorney fee would be a smaller percentage of the debt which is collected.

If the debtor does not pay after the initial letter, we generally file suit in the appropriate court. We are usually successful in obtaining a judgment against the debtor in favor of the person to whom the money is owed. Sometimes, after a judgment is obtained, the debtor decides it's in his or her best interest to pay the debt rather than to continue to incur costs and interest on the debt.

If the debtor does not pay after the judgment is obtained, we have a variety of tools available to us which can be used to collect your debt including wage garnishment, seizing personal property, etc. For some reason, often times a debtor would rather have his or her debt taken by wage garnishment than paying the entire amount all at once. The bottom line is, however, whatever method is used, our law firm is frequently able to secure payment of the debt.

There are, of course, a few circumstances where the debtor declares bankruptcy or doesn't work and doesn't have any personal property to seize. If bankruptcy is declared (and it has become increasingly difficult to declare bankruptcy), then it may be impossible to collect the debt. If the debtor simply doesn't have the assets available to satisfy the debt, any judgment against the debtor is good for 10 years and then can be renewed for another 10 years; therefore, the likelihood that the debtor will have some assets at some point in time to satisfy the debt is usually pretty good.

If our law firm can help you with collections, please feel free to contact us. We do handle the collections on a contingency basis, with the percentage of the contingency increasing as more activities are undertaken to collect the debt; therefore, if we are able to collect the debt with very little work, you stand to benefit.