Okay, you have been sued. What is this going to look like?
Your Answer to debt collection lawsuit needs to be filed with the court within thirty (30) days of the date that the summons and complaint were delivered to you. We will prepare the Answer for you.
We will also prepare a Demand for the debt collector’s entire file. It is much stronger than any request for debt validation you may have read about on the internet.
After a few months you will have a chance to pick a trial date or a date for a settlement conference. This does not mean you will have to go to trial, it is only a reservation of a future date.
Sometimes the other side will serve you with some questions called “Discovery”. There are certain ways to respond that you will not be aware of, but we can prepare your responses for you.
Next there will be about six months in which you can negotiate settlement (or ask us to do it for you) or you can just wait to see what the other side does. Often a debt collector will dismiss the case if you defend yourself long enough.
Toward the end of the lawsuit you should have us prepare our pre-trial documents. These are designed to make the debt collectors work harder and to require them to produce real evidence.
