It often happens that a debt collector will sue both spouses – either for the debts of one of them, or if they both signed up for the account or made charges on it. Our materials will obviously help in this case, but the question is what you will want to do.
Can One Spouse Represent Both?
In many states and courts (but not a majority), spouses are permitted actually to speak for one another. That is a change from the normal rule that only lawyers are allowed to represent others, but perhaps it is simply a nod in the direction of reality. If you are NOT permitted to speak for your spouse, he or she will be required to sign all pleadings applying to his or her case and, on rare occasions, appear personally. The shy spouse will rarely need to speak in court under any circumstances, but it could happen occasionally.
Possibly Different Interests, but Mostly Identical
The legal positions of the spouses may not be identical. The debt collector may have no right to sue a non-signing spouse. You would want to know this right away, and it is just a question of your state’s law (and your legal research). If there is no right against a non-signing spouse, you should consider moving to dismiss the claim on that basis as quickly as possible. Sometimes winning that motion would take all the fun out of the case for the debt collector – they may not be able to collect anything at all, win or lose, in that situation (again depending on your state law). Even if that is not so, getting one of the parties off the hook is potentially of tremendous benefit.
And filing a motion to do so has the added benefit of costing the debt collector money and time, which normally has its own benefits.
If you can’t get the shy spouse dismissed from the case, you will have two defendants with nearly identical defenses. But each will have a right to conduct discovery, which is an advantage. And while both must technically speak for themselves, as a practical matter the court will not want to hear identical arguments – you will not need to speak often. This should not be a reason to give up.
Both Spouses Should Stay Involved
I always suggest that both spouses should definitely pay attention to the proceedings, however. The shy spouse will often have valuable things to say, and in any event may – occasionally, be called upon to speak for him or herself. From a relationship point of view, defending together seems to be healthy as well. This is not a good area for either “you got us into it, now you can get us out,” or “I can take care of this, babe…” The stakes are too high for both spouses not to be intelligently involved.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-11-27 16:51:522018-11-27 20:43:06They’re Suing Me and My Spouse
We get this question a lot because people borrowing money for their businesses usually have to offer personal guarantees. Then if the loan goes sour, someone sues the owner and the business.
Suing Your Corporation
This issue does not normally arise where the business is either a sole proprietorship or a partnership, because these entities are not treated as “separate persons” in the law. When you’re sued as a partnership or sole proprietorship, you’re just being sued individually.
If you own a corporation, on the other hand, it is a separate person, and only lawyers can represent other persons. That means you can defend yourself, but not the corporation. What should you do? This depends on what you can afford and what is at stake.
Corporation Valuable
If the corporation has assets and is valuable, you probably need to protect it. That means hiring a lawyer to represent it. If you don’t, the debt collector will get a judgment against it by default, and such a judgment could be or become a major nuisance.
Corporation Not Valuable
If the corporation is not particularly valuable and is not going anywhere, you could consider dissolving it if there’s a judgment, so that is less important. The debt collector may try to prove that the corporation is too “thinly capitalized” and is, therefore, just an “alter ego” for you, however. That is something you should take seriously, and again it would suggest hiring a lawyer – at least for advice on what to do about it.
Proving thin capitalization is much more lawyering than most debt collectors are prepared to do, however. They like to use premade forms to establish cases against people who do not defend themselves. Getting the facts to prove thin capitalization is uneconomic for most debt collectors, although of course this doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in an individual case. Normally it won’t present much risk.
Hiring a Lawyer
If you hire a lawyer to defend the corporation, it is likely that the lawyer could also represent you personally. If you make that choice, which is wise if you have a lawyer well-versed in collection law, then you will simply be putting your fate in the hands of the lawyer. The problem is that most lawyers are NOT well-versed in debt defense, and there is a new financial variable as well, namely that the lawyer must charge for his or her services and recommend a “reasonable” course of action. That likely will lead to a settlement that might not be in your favor.
The Advantages of Self-Representation
The alternative is to let the lawyer represent the corporation while you represent yourself. This leaves you in the case as an involved litigant. As a practical matter, the case against you and the corporation are pretty much identical, and work on one will be work for both. Not all lawyers would willingly be involved in that scenario, but if yours is, you may get the best of both worlds. That is, you can let the lawyer spend “reasonable” amounts of time defending while you spend “unreasonable” amounts of time defending. Or, rather, since the lawyer is charging you $100 per hour or more, if you can work for less than that, time spent could be reasonable for you while unreasonable for the lawyer.
In debt law, unlike most other types of law, self-representation can make very good sense. You will not have the same bias towards settlement the lawyer has, and you will be free to spend more time on the case. This informs your judgment as to the law yet also makes your defense much tougher. We do believe that the risk of inadequate defense (by lawyers) is significant given the financial constraints, and suggest that your remaining knowledgeably involved could be very important.
Self-representation is annoying and time-consuming, and may not be financially efficient, but it would probably increase your chances of success, and there are intangible benefits of winning that are very significant.
Our Materials
Our materials will be of help to you in defending the legal issues involved in the collection. Our resources on legal research will help you with the other issues as well, but we have not addressed the specific issues of corporate law that could come up if your company is being sued. You will find the teleconferences helpful in many ways.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-11-27 16:21:522018-11-27 20:46:07They’re Suing me and my Business, Can and Should I Defend?
Do Your Materials Work for Cases against Original Creditors?
Yes. When I represented clients in these cases, there used to be a more significant difference between original creditors and junk debt buyers. We’ve written a lot about the differences between original creditors and debt buyers. They boil down into two things: you are more likely to have a counterclaim against a “debt collector” (which all debt buyers used to be considered); and debt buyers are less likely to have the documents they need to beat you. These differences are still there, but they are less important now than they used to be.
We will discuss both defense and possible counterclaims.
Defense
The main reason our materials work against both original creditors and others is practical. That is, it is because of the way law is actually practiced and the way people dispose of lawsuits. As we have often pointed out, parties settle cases only because they think a particular settlement offer is the best overall result they can obtain. It has nothing to do with what might be good, or nice, or anything else, for the other side. As a practical matter, you look for what is best for you and don’t try to help the other side, right?
Debt lawyers consider three things in this analysis: the risk of losing, the price of winning, and the chance of collection. These three things are very different.
Risk of Losing
The risk of losing is the chance that you will lose. It’s obviously never quite zero, but the people suing you pretty much ignore this risk – they think they will win, and the few times they don’t, don’t hurt. At the beginning of a lawsuit, therefore, this risk might as well be zero in the minds of the debt collectors. Our materials are designed to help you see whether they have any weaknesses, and if so, to build on them to create doubt in their minds. For pro se defendants, that’s pretty much all you will ever accomplish.
Price of Winning
The price of winning is very different. That is MUCH more of a consideration for the people suing you. Given (they think) that they will win, what will it cost to get the thing to trial and get the judgment? At the beginning of the case, the people suing you also ignore this issue because most people don’t put up much or any fight. The debt collectors expect their judgment easily and quickly – probably by default without any work at all.
And they get it most of the time. Our materials help you change their perception of this factor. Everything you do will cost them money, and the more you have done, the more they expect you to do. In other words, as you defend, the pile of costs grows, and the pile of expected costs grows even more. Whether they are debt buyers or original creditors, this radically changes the equation in their heads. It raises the likelihood that they will lose money whether they win the case or not. Frankly, this is why most of them settle for a reasonable amount.
Chance of Collection
The other factor is the chance of collection: given that they will win, can they get money from you. Debt collectors and original creditors both understand that most people want to pay their bills, and the reason some don’t is that they have money problems. They know they can’t get money from you if you don’t have it, and they think you probably don’t have it.
This factor is very much a part of their thinking at all stages of the case, and it’s why most debt collectors will probably give you a discount on the case before you do anything – if you ask. It won’t be much of a discount, but it will be more if you offer a lump sum (eliminating the risk of collecting the rest) than if you offer payments. Does that make sense?
Factors Work Together
Notice how these factors work together. If you don’t give the other side information about your assets, and you do conduct discovery, you (slightly, in their minds) increase their chances of losing and drastically increase the costs of suit. You also delay the judgment they had expected to get quickly – and that reduces their chances of collection if they win.
The two most important factors, cost and delay, are the same for original creditors and debt collectors. Risk of losing goes up more for debt collectors than original creditors, but this factor is never important for either debt collectors or original creditors.
Thus our materials help you drive the value of the case down in the same way for both groups. If the other side regards your case as less valuable, it is more likely to offer you an actually good settlement, or to walk away from the litigation eventually. But what if it doesn’t? How do our materials work then?
Remember that law is a contest with very specific rules. It has always been our belief that either debt collectors or original creditors COULD win their case against you. To do so, however, they have to get the stuff they need and follow through with it, and these are expensive to do.
When we started Your Legal Leg Up, we knew that debt collectors almost never had what they needed to win if the case went to trial, and we were satisfied that they could not get it in a cost-effective and timely way. But we believed original creditors did have the necessary evidence or could easily get it. We have discovered that this is not true.
We are unaware of any reason why this is so. From our perspective, it would seem to be a simple process to retain the necessary records and do what is necessary to “authenticate” them as evidence (make them admissible in court). Nevertheless it is an observable fact that they often do not obtain or use appropriate evidence, and therefore there must be some reason for it. Perhaps it is the same for original creditors as it is for debt collectors – either they don’t think it’s worth it given the collection risk, or they are set up in a way where getting the information would clog up their systems and increase costs in general. In any event, you can find out if they have the evidence and the will to use them correctly by doing only one thing: fighting their case and conducting discovery. We believe there’s a good chance you will win if you do this.
Counterclaims
The other side of debt defense is using a counterclaim to take control of the lawsuit. We do still regard this as an important thing, if you can do it. That’s because if you can hold the debt collector in the suit with a counterclaim, you can make them dismiss the case “with prejudice,” which prevents anyone else from suing you on the debt. It will also help you repair your credit if you destroy the claim against you.
You will probably never have a good counterclaim against an original creditor, whereas you might get one against a debt collector. Some claims do exist – notably defamation or, for extreme acts, something called the “tort of outrageous infliction of emotional distress,” but the courts have historically been amazingly tolerant of original creditors. Much less so of debt collectors.
But again, as a practical matter, these things have turned out to be less important than they might have been. If you win the suit against another party (without prejudice), they are unlikely ever to sue you again even if they could. And if they sell the debt, the person buying the claim would have little chance against you in court. It also appears to be true that after dropping a suit against you the other side would have less energy and desire to prevent you from credit repair. It isn’t that they like you or couldn’t make trouble, it’s just that they have no financial interest in doing so. This appears to cause a lot of them to take no steps to prevent your efforts to remove their credit references.
Most people being sued by debt collectors just want the suit to go away and are not interested in trying to make the other side pay. This reduces the importance of the other side’s status as debt collector or not.
Conclusion
Therefore all things considered, our materials are about equally effective against debt collectors and original creditors. If the matter goes all the way to trial, you might have a somewhat larger chance of losing to an original creditor, but fighting intelligently will give you your best chance of preventing that from happening. The actual court processes are the same in either case, so you will be prepared to fight.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-11-26 20:44:342018-11-26 20:44:34Do Our Materials Work against Original Creditors
Hey there! This content is available to MEMBERS only! Consider registering for an account.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-10-26 16:06:022020-01-24 20:30:19Deposing a Business Records Keeper
Consumers who owe money – debtors – often believe a lot of myths that are bad for them. Debtors can be desperate and will look for what seems the easiest, fastest way out of trouble. That makes sense – if you’re being sued you do need immediate action. But you must be on guard for myths that will hurt you by luring you into the wrong action, or no action.
And the worst myth being played to people being sued is the idea that somehow someone else will take care of them. It shows up in many ways and is always bad news. It isn’t necessarily your fault if you have believed this destructive myth – there are a lot of people peddling it. But your chances to beat the debt collectors and protect your money depend on your taking charge.
The Myth – where does it show up and how does it do so much damage?
Let’s look at some of the biggest examples of the myth that someone ELSE will take care of you.
People Think the Debt Collectors will Try to be Fair
Everybody KNOWS this: Debt collectors make very little effort to be fair once a lawsuit is filed – and they don’t try much before that, either.
Once you’re in a debt collector’s sights, the only thing they really care about is getting your money. At the “harassment stage,” the debt collectors are paid depending on how much they can get you to pay, and not many people think they trust them to tell the truth. And yet so many people tell me they have offered information or money to the debt collectors or asked them to give them a break in some way. They SAY they don’t trust them, but then they depend on them to make a fair or helpful offer. And when they’re talking to them about “how much they owe,” they believe the debt collector instead of demanding proof.
You’ve learned to tell the truth, so you trust and believe the debt collector on the phone will tell you the truth. And you do that even while you, yourself, might feel free to lie to them at any given point.
The debt collectors know all that, and you can’t trust a word they say. You must take care of yourself, and with debt collectors, that means checking every fact they claim and making them write down every promise they make. Anything short of those things is trusting someone you don’t know, who doesn’t care about you, and has strong financial incentive to rip you off, to do the right thing. That’s naïve and foolish – and it happens all the time.
People Think the Lawyers Will be Fair
I know, you’ve probably heard the joke: “How do you know if a lawyer is lying?” – “His lips are moving.” It’s fashionable to say bad things about lawyers, and everybody knows, in the abstract, not to trust them. But there are two major forces going against you in a debt case. First, lawyers are not all untrustworthy, and most of them don’t sound like they are. They make their living by getting people to believe and trust them, after all. The second reason is more insidious: it is power. Lawyers in debt cases have the power to make your life very difficult. They can embarrass you, put you to enormous stress and expense, and they often treat you like dirt. In addition to that, they represent large, rich companies, while you are a financially stressed individual.
Faced with such a difficult situation, it’s easy to hope for the best. And if you can hope it, you can believe it, right?
Legal Ethics
The lawyers are supposed to be careful, at least, before filing suit. They have an ethical obligation not to bring meritless suits.
Do you believe they make that effort when suing debtors? Probably not – and you would be right. The courts wink at the collection process, allowing lawyers to “rely” on the statements of the creditors that you owe the money. In the case of debt buyers, ironically, the very agreements by which they buy debt say that the records cannot be trusted and are not guaranteed. But the lawyers forge ahead usually without the slightest idea of what’s in the case, let alone whether it’s right or not.
And the courts let them.
On a more fundamental level, a lawyer’s main and almost exclusive duty is to the advantage of his or her client. It isn’t ethical for a lawyer to “cut you a break” at the expense of his or her client. They won’t ever do it.
And yet debtors share information and throw themselves on the mercy of these sharks by the thousands per DAY. That’s trusting the myth.
Trusting the Courts
Most people trust the courts. They know that a lot of judges are bozos in black gowns, and they know that most judges come from the plaintiff’s side of the law. They know the legal system is skewed in favor of the rich even as the laws are skewed in favor of the rich. They know, theoretically, that trusting judges to take care of them is a big mistake.
And yet you would not believe how many people tell me the judge should have seen through something or not allowed the debt collector to do something – often without even having asked the judge for what they wanted.
Know this: it is not the courts’s job to take care of you. They give only the briefest look, if any at all, at the outcomes of debt cases – they don’t have time, they don’t care, and they aren’t even supposed to care. The legal system is designed as an “adversary” system. That is, it is a fight, and in any fight people could use various strategies. The court will let you use almost any strategy you choose, and if that causes you to lose it isn’t their fault or concern.
The courts will not require the debt collectors to put on admissible evidence. If they did, most debt collectors would never win their cases. Instead, it is up to you to object to evidence you don’t like and make the court keep it out. If you don’t do that, the court lets it in.
And yet people expect the court to try to make the outcome of cases fair. They do not. Believing they will is believing the myth that someone else will take care of you.
In daily life, people do look out for each other quite a bit. In legal life, NEVER.
You wouldn’t believe how many people do not even show up in court “because they don’t owe the money.” They somehow trust someone to see that and care, but this is just foolish.
The Myth, outside of Court
People in debt frequently look to other people for help in the belief that those people will, in fact, help them. On the internet, there are people earnestly telling you that no one owes anybody anything (the “Accept for Value” idea), yet they’d be outraged if you didn’t pay them – just as you would be outraged if you went to work and your boss told you that. To believe the A4V theory is to believe that someone is taking care of you. More than that, to believe the people hawking that, or any other program, is also to believe the myth.
Even Me
Everything I’m saying here applies to me, too. You might be surprised how often I get emails or messages asking me what they should do and presenting pages of facts or laws. They want me to take care of them – they are trusting me to take care of them.
Representing yourself pro se means developing your OWN judgment. It requires carefully weighing facts and motivations and coming to your own conclusions. It means figuring out the facts and how to get them.
It takes work, and it takes time.
When debt collectors sue you for debt, you have a very good chance to win. But it is up to you to make that happen. Our materials and memberships exist to help you know what you need to do and to help you do it. We want to teach you how to defend yourself. Once you learn that, it changes your whole view of the world. It frees you from the myth that someone else will do it for you and lets you soar on your own wings.
Your Legal Leg Up
Your Legal Leg Up is dedicated to helping people defend themselves from debt lawsuits without having to hire a lawyer. Lawsuits have a number of points where specific action is called or, and we have products to help you deal with most of these situations. We also have memberships that give you access to more materials and better training, and also provide a regular opportunity to ask questions and get answers in real-time. You can use this time to find out what the debt collectors are trying to do and what you might do in response, and you can get guidance on the issues that matter and how to think about and address them.
In addition to that, our website is a resource for all. Many of the articles and materials are reserved for members, but many others are available to everyone. Every page has a site search button in both the header and footer. Put in a key word – a word you think relates to what you’re looking for – and enter. You will get a page of results.
Products Related to this Article
Because this is a general article, there are not any products specifically related to this post. I do suggest asserting your rights early and often, and you might find our Take Control of your Life product helpful in that. I also suggest great care in researching and analyzing facts and law. You might find our Guide to Legal Research and Analysis product helpful for that.
Beyond that, if you are facing significant debt problems, I’d suggest our memberships.
Memberships
Members get discounts on all products as well as unlimited opportunities to join our regularly scheduled teleconferences. This gives invaluable real-time assistance, answers to questions, help with strategies, and encouragement. You also get the Litigation Manual and the Three Weaknesses Report for free with membership. Find out about memberships by clicking the “About Memberships” link in the menu at the top of the page.
What you’ll receive if you sign up is a series of several videos and articles spread out over several days, and then you will occasionally hear from us as we add information to the site. We don’t always announce that information, though.
What you will not receive is any marketing from other people – or much from us, either. Our goal is to make the site more useful to members and visitors, not to swamp anyone with sales materials. The information we send will have links to information or products that we think may be helpful.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-07-22 20:08:432019-12-13 21:58:53The Most Dangerous Myth for Consumers in Debt
When you’re being sued by the debt collector and have brought a counterclaim, you might bring a motion for summary judgment motion as to both parts of the case. They’re treated just a little differently differently. If they file a motion for summary judgement before you do, your motion would be called a “Cross-Motion,” and if they file first, you need to include your cross-motion with your response to their motion.
Just as we said about defending against a motion for summary judgment, these motions are first – and far more importantly – about the facts. Only secondarily do the arguments about what those facts might mean come in. Prove that they can’t show the facts to win their case – or that they can’t defend against your case – and you will win.
Filing a Motion as to the Debt Collector’s Case
The plaintiff has the burden of proof, and that makes a lot of difference in motions for summary judgment. It means that you can prove your defense against the debt collector either by showing that and one part of its case against you cannot be proved.
If the debt collector cannot prove ownership of the debt it is asserting against you, for example, its whole case must fail. Likewise if it can’t prove the amount of the debt or that you owe it. If any part of the plaintiff’s case fails, all of it does. And you can prove that it fails either by proving—remember,
you must show that there is “no dispute” about the things you are proving—that the debt collector is wrong (it isn’t your social security number or name, for example), or that the debt collector will not be able to prove the debt.
How Can You Know What You Need to Know?
How could you prove the debt collector can’t prove something? Well, a simple example could be an old Mastercard account. Let’s say the debt collector has no admissible evidence that the account was ever yours. And this is not rare, by the way. It was hoping to get you to admit that it was (or not to defend yourself at all). But you testify that it was not or that you do not remember one way or another.
That leaves it with no evidence on this crucial issue.
Or suppose it wants to prove an amount owed, but all it has is an inadmissible computer tape (or nothing but bills it sent you) and you deny owing the amount. That leaves it without evidence. You want to prove that the debt collector is without evidence, and if you do, you should get a summary judgment.
How do you know in advance that it doesn’t have any admissible evidence on these things? Because you will have asked by interrogatories for everything they have. When they give it all to you, you will be able to say what they can or cannot prove.
Or what if one of the things they give you shows that the debt is owed by someone else? Or owned by someone else? All these things are possible, and they sometimes happen.
When Do You File?
Consider what the debt collector must prove in order to show you owe it money. This is called its “prima facie” (pronounced in a wide variety of ways!) case. When you have the evidence you need that the debt collector cannot prove at least one part of its case against you, you will file your motion.
Motion for Summary Judgment on Your Counterclaim
Your motion for summary judgment as to your counterclaim is somewhat different. As the plaintiff in that claim, you have the burden of proof. That means that you must prove every part of your case, and they only have to prove one is missing. It means that instead of attacking on just one point, you must show undisputed facts as to all of them.
Summary Judgment on FDCPA Claims
Luckily, the FDCPA really lends itself to motions for summary judgment. The FDCPA lends itself to summary judgment because you don’t need to prove that the debt collector intended to do anything wrong. You don’t have to prove that you believed anything it said. Or that you suffered any particular damages.
Plus, if the violation occurred in the legal process (by using a false or deceptive affidavit, for example) or by a deceptive or threatening letter from the debt collector, the proof is right there in written form.
Almost undeniable. Or completely undeniable.
You Can Prove Them, Though
You can prove those things, but you don’t have to. If you have a claim for emotional distress, for example, your actual deception or intimidation, their intent, and any harm to you could very well make a difference. You often don’t want them determined on summary judgment, though, because you want the jury to get the full impact of all the testimony, and a judgment on the issue might cause the judge to curtail some of it.
That means that all you have to do is prove that the affidavit was deceptive—which may be obvious on its face. Or the letter threatening. Or whatever. And remember that you will have done discovery to find out whatever wasn’t obvious. If you have any other claims against the debt collector this will probably be more important.
Again, you will follow the rules regarding summary judgment very, very carefully. Numbered paragraphs, attached memos, exhibits correctly marked, etc. Do all that, and you should have your summary judgment.
Partial Summary Judgment
What if you prove that the debt collector violated the FDCPA but not that the debt is no good? What then? Well, it is possible to get what is called a “partial” summary judgment, where the court decides part of the case and leaves the rest for the jury to determine. You can prove they violated the FDCPA, but not how much they should pay, for example. And this is called “partial summary judgment as to liability but not damages.”
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-07-10 18:45:392018-10-02 18:31:13Creating a Motion or Cross Motion for Summary Judgment
Hey there! This content is available to MEMBERS only! Consider registering for an account.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-06-20 20:47:202020-04-09 16:36:32How to Create Good Faith Letter
What is the court’s involvement in discovery? Does it oversee interrogatories, requests for production and requests for admissions?
In most jurisdictions, there is no court involvement in the discovery process unless and until a motion to compel becomes necessary. Even in those jurisdictions, a lot of people will send a “notice of service of discovery” which simply informs the court of the date and type of service certain discovery was served on the other side: “On this date, defendant served his first set of interrogatories, requests for admissions, and requests for production on plaintiff by first class mail, postage prepaid, at the address noted below as the service address.”
Perhaps a very few courts require this by local rule. For other courts, it probably does not hurt and may occasionally do some good. If, for example, some issue of notice arises, parties are usually held responsible for knowing what was in a notice to the court. I’m not aware of that ever actually making a significant difference, however, and most lawyers do not send such notices unless required by rule.
In a very few courts – I just heard of one shortly before writing this article – the courts still take copies of the discovery. That’s a question you could ask a court clerk and probably get an answer, because if they don’t want it, they really don’t want it. That is, for most courts if you send them a copy of the discovery you sent to the other side, the court will return it to you and not accept it.
The Way Discovery Works
What happens is simple. You serve discovery directly to the other side. They answer, object, or ignore you. If you take no further action, nothing will happen. No one looks out for you! Some people think that’s wrong, but the court gives the parties the freedom to choose their fights, and if you don’t fight about it, the court is only too happy to forget it.
Specifically this means that if you serve discovery on the other side and they ignore it, the court will probably not prevent them from using things they should have given you at trial. If you want to protect yourself you have to follow through.
If you want to force the debt collector to answer, you must file a motion to compel (and typically you have to send them a “good-faith” letter to try to get them to agree to answer, first). Then you attach all your discovery requests and their answers and objections, and file it with the court. That’s the first time the court will see it, so your motion to compel has to be thorough and complete.
And there’s more. After the other side responds, you will need to “call” (schedule your motion with the court) and argue it in front of the judge in order to get the court to rule. The court will either sustain their objections or overrule them and order them to answer the requests. It will usually give them a little time to do that.
At the argument and in your motion, you have to go through each item of discovery and every objection one at a time. It can be maddening, but you are asking the court to rule on a long series of objections, and it must make up its mind on each separate thing.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webp00Ken Giberthttps://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/logo-208x300.webpKen Gibert2018-06-20 20:40:152018-10-02 18:46:31Court Involvement in Discovery
