In 2016 this article become obsolete because we only use the top 1% of lawyers and judgment enforcers. I am not a lawyer, I am a Judgment Broker. This article is my opinion. If you ever need legal advice or a strategy to use, please contact a lawyer.
Every day, we get at least one phone call from someone that owns a judgment, that is “sick and tired of lazy judgment enforcers”.
For example, today someone called, and said they have had their million dollar judgment with three different judgment enforcers and one contingency collection lawyer, and none of them made any progress “because they are all lazy”.
When we asked about their judgment debtor, the reason for their repeated experience became clear. Their debtor was a world-class scammer, that had deeply hidden their assets, and “all you have to do is find out where they hid it”. That is the problem.
When the economy was booming, it was fairly easy to find contingency experts or buyers who would work on pure contingency, fronting massive amounts of time and money chasing frauds that had hidden their assets.
In a down economy, most judgment enforcers, contingency lawyers, and contingency collection agencies, have become very picky about which judgments they will work on a pure contingency basis.
Put yourself in the judgment enforcer’s shoes: You are offering them a million dollar judgment against a 72-year old man with deeply hidden assets.
Two other enforcers tried before to recover it, however they “did nothing”. They both told you they did not want to spend any more money trying to recover your judgment.
Now, your offer (that no judment enforcer is willing to take) is: “You can recover my judgment – if you will agree to pure contingency, constantly update me with your progress reports, and should you not make real progress, return it to me within two years.”
What is wrong with your offer? Your judgment is very difficult – and you are asking for the judgment enforcer to spend a large amount of their own time and money upfront, and agree to your special conditions and time limits.
Ignoring for now, that time limits might be considered bailment in some places, and that most enforcers will not allow you to micro-manage them; the real show stopper is the judgment debtor’s assets are “deeply hidden”.
Most often, when you think a judgment enforcer is lazy, it means there was not an obvious or reasonable way to recover any debtor assets to satisfy the judgment.
When times were good, there was an assumption of upward mobility that made judgment buyers willing to take more risks. The economy has affected judgment enforcers as much as most other businesses. Most judgment enforcers are now becoming very conservative.
Also during good times, sneaky judgment debtors would sometimes carelessly spend money on things that left records. Now, even rich and sneaky debtors, are laying low because they know hungry creditors are after their assets.
The economy has caused most judgment buyers to go out of business, and the few that are left, will not buy judgments for more than a few cents on the dollar when the judgment debtor has deeply hidden their assets.
If your judgment debtor has deeply hidden their assets, and nobody will buy, or wants to try to enforce your judgment on a contingency basis, you might want to first, hire a private investigator to find some of those hidden assets.