Mediation is “rigged” against pro se defendants in debt law cases. Why do I say that? Is there some evil force at play? No…
The mediator might be trying his hardest to be fair and honest, but even so the process is rigged. To understand why, let’s first go back to who the mediator is.
A mediator is usually (but not absolutely always) a lawyer. That is useful and appropriate in general because you generally want someone who knows how the legal process works and what you might encounter, in general, if you went to court. At the least it will almost certainly be someone who spends a lot of time in court or with lawyers and is impressed with lawyers.
Often the parties are given a list of “approved” mediators by the court. You’d have to get permission to get someone else. In some situations the parties are completely free to find their own mediator.
And I gather that in some situations a mediator is just assigned by the court automatically, and you don’t get to choose.
Mediation is Rigged
Whatever way it works, the lawyer has an advantage. The mediators have a reputation, and the lawyers can find out what that reputation is far more easily than you can. They won’t use a mediator who has a reputation of pushing too hard against them.
And the mediators know that, of course. You see, the debt collection lawyers are “constant.” They handle many, many of these cases, and if one of them decides never to use a mediator…well, that could be a lot of money to the mediator. If you decide against a mediator or don’t like him or her after going through the process, your options are extremely limited. Your opinion simply doesn’t matter as much to the mediator. And that’s true of everything in the whole process.
Lawyers Trust Lawyers
Next, have you ever heard the saying that “everything looks like a nail to someone who is good with a hammer?” That will apply to mediation. As I said, you can pretty much expect the mediator to be a lawyer or at least an ex-lawyer. Lawyers tend to respect, trust and understand other lawyers.
The mediator might like and respect you and be warm and friendly and all that. But when the chips are down, the mediator will tend to trust and believe the lawyer more than you. And he or she will also expect you to lose the case if it goes to trial, no matter what the evidence shows, because of this sympathy to the lawyer for the debt collector.
No matter what the evidence shows.
And this is true even if the mediator doesn’t specially trust or respect collection lawyers. We all know that debt collection isn’t rocket science, but lawyers come basically from the same caste, and they expect other lawyers to be able to beat non-lawyers.
Your Advantages Could Get Forgotten
The mediator will get paid regardless of whether you settle, and regardless of who wins. That reduces the amount of attention the mediator must spend on your central advantage: the price of litigation.
Further, the mediator will almost certainly not know much about debt law or the debt collection business. That means the mediator will tend to undervalue your second main advantage, the Rules of Evidence! If you have my materials (you should!), you will probably know far more about the relevant law and the “facts of life” than the mediator does. That’s because lawyers tend to take sides in their lives. I would never have represented a debt collection company, and debt collector lawyers rarely defend against debt collectors. So no debt collection attorney from either side would be likely to be truly impartial.
And most other lawyers don’t know much about debt collection at all. Thus the mediator’s tendency to trust and believe the debt collector is magnified in importance.
Mediation Can be Intimidating
Finally, let’s consider the mediation process itself. It’s a chance for one-on-one combat (so to speak) between the parties without the rules of evidence being so important. (And the rules of evidence are another of your biggest advantages). The debt collection lawyer will act like he can prove everything –no sweat. The mediator will believe that. Both will exert pressure on you to “realize” how strong the debt collector’s case is. You will feel lonely and outnumbered. The debt collector’s lawyer feels no risk in this situation –it’s just a job to him—whereas the personal stakes are much higher for you.
What You Must Remember
Through it all, you have to remember, cling tenaciously to the facts that… most debt collections lawyers do not have the evidence they need to win their case and cannot get it cheaply enough to go to trial against you and make money. What have they actually shown you? Can they pull up and show you and the mediator an affidavit from the original creditor that proves that they, the debt collector, actually own the debt, how much it is, that you owe it and didn’t pay? Can they prove that you owe the money? How? Remember that if they want to introduce any account information from the original creditor they’ve got to have either a witness or an affidavit. Can they get it cheaply enough to justify the expense? Not likely! You may have to remind the mediator of these facts—many times.
Don’t Forget Collection Risk
Also, you have to remember their “collection risk.” How likely are they going to be able to collect the money from you? If you didn’t pay (and if you owed) it was probably because you couldn’t afford to pay. Just because they manage to get a judgment, if they do and over your strenuous efforts in court and before, that doesn’t mean, by a long shot, that they’ll get their money.
Your Advantages
Your main tasks in mediation are to remember these facts. AND to remember not to provide them any information or material that could help them get past these problems. If you say you could pay, or if you admit the account was yours…you make their job in court much easier.
Also, remember your advantage: if they have a lawyer or two present, the clock is running, and someone is paying and not very happy about that. Time is on your side in mediation as elsewhere. Remember the Litigation materials and what your advantages are. If you can withstand the fear and temptation to give up, you’ll be in very good shape and can settle (or not) according to what is really in your best interests.
Overcoming Default Judgments
As anybody familiar with my work knows, most debt cases end in either default or “give-up settlements,” where the person sued agrees to everything (or almost everything) the debt collector wants. It is one of the strangest things in all of law: most debt cases that are filed couldn’t be won if they were opposed; but very few people fight. So 90 percent of the unwinnable cases filed in debt are in fact won with the greatest of ease.
Strange.
Pardon the sound quality on this recording, please. It’s old but still helpful.
So what is a default? It is first a court order, and often a judgment immediately or after a short delay, giving the plaintiff – the person who brought the suit – whatever they wanted. It happens when the defendant does not show up or defend himself or herself in court. Note that “default” is not the correct way to describe what happens if you DO show up and lose. The result of not showing up is usually a complete, automatic victory for the plaintiff, and that’s what we’re talking about.
The courts do not “favor” such an outcome. That’s because a case that is won because it wasn’t opposed is not a victory “on the merits” – there’s no real indication it’s fair, and as everybody knows in the debt context, it often is NOT fair. But what can the courts do?
If you have had a default against you, you may have a chance to get that changed. If you take steps, and if they think you weren’t playing games in the first place, they will often reverse the judgment. Then you go back to defending the lawsuit. If you get that far, you will probably win the suit – 90% of winning the case will be in getting the judgment vacated (removed). That will stop collection and start the case over – but if you’re willing to fight, and manage to get the default judgment vacated, you’ll find the rest of it pretty easy.
We have products that can help you vacate the default. And of course if you manage to do that, we can help with the rest of it, too.
You Will Probably Win if you Fight Debt Collectors
If you are being harassed or sued by the debt collectors, there’s no need to give up. You have an excellent chance to win, and it isn’t that hard to defend yourself.
Defending Yourself against Debt Collectors Isn’t That Hard
Your Legal Leg Up is designed to help ordinary people defend themselves from debt collectors. The problems occur in three main ways. First, before there is litigation, there is usually some sort of harassment – it would be easier and cheaper for the debt collector to scare you into paying if possible. At the same time, it might be possible to get the debt collector settle the issue with you without having to go to court. Thus we help people with debt settlement.
If debt settlement doesn’t work, or if the collector proceeds to a lawsuit without any chance to try to negotiate, you’ll need to defend yourself in litigation. That’s where we got our start, and we have lots of materials that will help you defend yourself. Keep in mind that debt collectors handle everything in bulk. That means they can be very efficient at parts of their lawsuit, but much less so at others. So our materials and approach are designed to exploit that problem. That makes litigation much more expensive and less profitable for the debt collector and maximize your chance of winning, too. That’s why most of our members win their cases.
Even after your lawsuit – or sometimes they don’t even sue – you will probably have damage to your credit report. Thus we help people repair and reconstruct their credit reports. This is a multi-step program that works at eliminating bad information on your credit report while generating new good information.
We have memberships aimed at each of these areas of the debt law. Find the right one for you and let us help you.
Making it Look Hard to Defend
Debt collectors make most of their money by scaring, or tricking, people into forfeiting their rights to defend themselves. That’s far, far cheaper and faster than actually litigating. So debt collectors spend a great deal of time and effort learning how to make people give up. They’re good at that, but if you fight back anyway, you have an excellent chance to win.
Remember that most of what debt collectors are doing with their petition is trying to scare you into giving up. They’re trying to make things scary and inconvenient for you so you won’t protect your rights. Here are some of their more common tricks and some things you can do about them.
One of the most common complaints I hear from people pursued by debt collections is that debt collectors have deceived them into not going to court.Then they get a default judgment and start collecting. Don’t let that happen to you!
Here’s how to spot this one coming– and what to do about it if it’s already happened to you.
The way it comes up is that the defendant (person being sued) receives the summons and petition only a relatively few days before the date given on the summons for showing up to court. The person being sued panics either because the date set is extremely inconvenient or because they do not have the resources to fight the suit regardless of which day is set for court.
They Trick You into Staying away from Court
So you call the debt collection law firm and asks to speak to the lawyer suing you. The lawyer will not speak to you (normally), and so you are forced to speak to some clerk, actually a skilled collection agent. The law firm then plays a “good cop, bad cop” routine, where the person speaking to you takes a message and agrees to get back to the defendant with the words of the lawyer. Or they play “tough but fair” and outright refuse to agree to move the court date.
They routinely move court dates for lawyers.
Either way, they want you to be maximally inconvenienced because they really, really, really don’t want you to show up or defend yourself! They say they will, however, agree to come to an “arrangement” that makes going to court “unnecessary.” Isn’t that nice
Then they either create an agreement and send it to you—or not. But if you think that going to court is unnecessary and don’t go, then the debt collector often “calls for default” (asks the court to give them a default judgment) whether you have an agreement or not.
But the agreement is usually a complete giving up anyway.
NO NO NO NO!
Don’t let this happen to you. If you can’t go to court on the date specified on the petition, think about filing an answer denying the allegations of their suit–and add a counterclaim for unfair debt collection by refusing to “move” (it’s called “continue”) the court date for you when they would do so for a lawyer.
Then you might file a “motion to continue” your court date with the court, telling it that you tried to work out the continuance with the other side but that it would not cooperate. Ask the court’s clerk for the “continuance date” and put that into your motion.
See, courts will almost ALWAYS continue a case if a lawyer asks for it. And if you file an answer first and then your request to continue, they’ll do it for you, too.
If the debt collector has already tricked you and gotten a default judgment, all is not lost. But you must act quickly. You should know that the law does not “favor” default judgments. This means that they lean against allowing them to stand if you make a decent argument against them.
The way you would do that would be to start with a motion to vacate the judgment.
Discovery – Starting to Win your Case
It is not necessary to begin discovery at the time you file your Answer and Counterclaim, but if it is at all possible for you to do, it gives you a big advantage.
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Push or Be Pushed – Get that Discovery Started
In the law, it is push or be pushed. That is, if you aren’t already pushing the debt collector to give you discovery or respond to motions, chances are good that they will be giving you things to do. When you’re pushing them, your chances of winning go way up. When they’re pushing you, they go down.
You might not think it would have to be that way. There’s usually plenty of time given to do everything that needs to be done and that the law expects both sides to do things at basically the same time. But theory aside, the reality is that people – lawyers included – will usually do what is pressing them first. And then they may – or may not – do the rest of what they should do.
People in general, and lawyers especially, make sure they’re pretty close to being as busy as they can be. And this inevitably means that choices will have to be made when and if things get tighter. If you push the debt collectors to answer your discovery, in other words, they very well may choose to skip discovery on you. If you skip discovery on them, you will soon discovery they have plenty enough time to keep you busy. That’s just the way things work.
So if you’re in a case where they’ve already served discovery on you, you’re going to have to do double duty – make sure you serve your discovery on them before you give them your answers. If you don’t, the next thing you know they’ll be filing a motion for summary judgment against you.
Better yet, make sure you are first out the discovery gate – and then keep tightening the screws. Serve discovery on them along with your Answer. This requires you to be prepared for your case pretty quickly, but it will pay off in a big way down the line.
Make them Answer Discovery
Do Your Legal Leg Up Materials work against Original Creditors?
Do the YourLegalLegUp Litigation materials work on cases brought by original creditors as opposed to debt collectors? Yes–but watch this video to see how lawsuits by original creditors are different from those brought by debt collectors.
I used to think the difference between debt collectors and original creditors meant more than it does now. Perhaps it’s because there is such a huge amount of debt out there that even creditors lose track of it. Perhaps all the debt makes any one debt cheap. But in any event, the difference between original creditors is less than it used to be. The original creditors often do not have the records they need to prove the debt, and even more often than that they don’t have the will to pursue it if you fight.
In any case, you will pretty much always be better off it you do fight the lawsuit and go through the discovery process – especially if that means filing a motion to compel. It’s work, but if you can prove they don’t have what they need, you can make them drop the case. And if you find that they DO have what they need, your making them work so hard will make them settle for much less than they would have. Or if you can’t settle, you’ll take your best shot – and you’ll have put off the result for quite a while even if you lose.
Our materials will guide you through that process. You need to know how the system works in order to use it, and our materials give you what you need to understand the system.
Importance of Early Discovery
Preparing for Mediation Pro Se
Mediation is “rigged” against pro se defendants in debt law cases. Why do I say that? Is there some evil force at play? No…
The mediator might be trying his hardest to be fair and honest, but even so the process is rigged. To understand why, let’s first go back to who the mediator is.
A mediator is usually (but not absolutely always) a lawyer. That is useful and appropriate in general because you generally want someone who knows how the legal process works and what you might encounter, in general, if you went to court. At the least it will almost certainly be someone who spends a lot of time in court or with lawyers and is impressed with lawyers.
Often the parties are given a list of “approved” mediators by the court. You’d have to get permission to get someone else. In some situations the parties are completely free to find their own mediator.
And I gather that in some situations a mediator is just assigned by the court automatically, and you don’t get to choose.
Mediation is Rigged
Whatever way it works, the lawyer has an advantage. The mediators have a reputation, and the lawyers can find out what that reputation is far more easily than you can. They won’t use a mediator who has a reputation of pushing too hard against them.
And the mediators know that, of course. You see, the debt collection lawyers are “constant.” They handle many, many of these cases, and if one of them decides never to use a mediator…well, that could be a lot of money to the mediator. If you decide against a mediator or don’t like him or her after going through the process, your options are extremely limited. Your opinion simply doesn’t matter as much to the mediator. And that’s true of everything in the whole process.
Lawyers Trust Lawyers
Next, have you ever heard the saying that “everything looks like a nail to someone who is good with a hammer?” That will apply to mediation. As I said, you can pretty much expect the mediator to be a lawyer or at least an ex-lawyer. Lawyers tend to respect, trust and understand other lawyers.
The mediator might like and respect you and be warm and friendly and all that. But when the chips are down, the mediator will tend to trust and believe the lawyer more than you. And he or she will also expect you to lose the case if it goes to trial, no matter what the evidence shows, because of this sympathy to the lawyer for the debt collector.
No matter what the evidence shows.
And this is true even if the mediator doesn’t specially trust or respect collection lawyers. We all know that debt collection isn’t rocket science, but lawyers come basically from the same caste, and they expect other lawyers to be able to beat non-lawyers.
Your Advantages Could Get Forgotten
The mediator will get paid regardless of whether you settle, and regardless of who wins. That reduces the amount of attention the mediator must spend on your central advantage: the price of litigation.
Further, the mediator will almost certainly not know much about debt law or the debt collection business. That means the mediator will tend to undervalue your second main advantage, the Rules of Evidence! If you have my materials (you should!), you will probably know far more about the relevant law and the “facts of life” than the mediator does. That’s because lawyers tend to take sides in their lives. I would never have represented a debt collection company, and debt collector lawyers rarely defend against debt collectors. So no debt collection attorney from either side would be likely to be truly impartial.
And most other lawyers don’t know much about debt collection at all. Thus the mediator’s tendency to trust and believe the debt collector is magnified in importance.
Mediation Can be Intimidating
Finally, let’s consider the mediation process itself. It’s a chance for one-on-one combat (so to speak) between the parties without the rules of evidence being so important. (And the rules of evidence are another of your biggest advantages). The debt collection lawyer will act like he can prove everything –no sweat. The mediator will believe that. Both will exert pressure on you to “realize” how strong the debt collector’s case is. You will feel lonely and outnumbered. The debt collector’s lawyer feels no risk in this situation –it’s just a job to him—whereas the personal stakes are much higher for you.
What You Must Remember
Through it all, you have to remember, cling tenaciously to the facts that… most debt collections lawyers do not have the evidence they need to win their case and cannot get it cheaply enough to go to trial against you and make money. What have they actually shown you? Can they pull up and show you and the mediator an affidavit from the original creditor that proves that they, the debt collector, actually own the debt, how much it is, that you owe it and didn’t pay? Can they prove that you owe the money? How? Remember that if they want to introduce any account information from the original creditor they’ve got to have either a witness or an affidavit. Can they get it cheaply enough to justify the expense? Not likely! You may have to remind the mediator of these facts—many times.
Don’t Forget Collection Risk
Also, you have to remember their “collection risk.” How likely are they going to be able to collect the money from you? If you didn’t pay (and if you owed) it was probably because you couldn’t afford to pay. Just because they manage to get a judgment, if they do and over your strenuous efforts in court and before, that doesn’t mean, by a long shot, that they’ll get their money.
Your Advantages
Your main tasks in mediation are to remember these facts. AND to remember not to provide them any information or material that could help them get past these problems. If you say you could pay, or if you admit the account was yours…you make their job in court much easier.
Also, remember your advantage: if they have a lawyer or two present, the clock is running, and someone is paying and not very happy about that. Time is on your side in mediation as elsewhere. Remember the Litigation materials and what your advantages are. If you can withstand the fear and temptation to give up, you’ll be in very good shape and can settle (or not) according to what is really in your best interests.
Original Creditor or Debt Collector?
The question of the month has to do with a petition brought in the name of the original creditor – is that who is suing you?
Member question is, if the summons and complaint list the original creditor but at the bottom of the summons and complaint it has “this communication is from a debt collector” am I dealing with the original creditor through their attorneys or is this a debt that they have transferred/sold?
My answer to this question used to be, always, that if the case was brought in the name of the original creditor, that’s who you should think actually was suing you, but my answer has changed somewhat. Now I would say that if you have any doubt about who is suing you, you should pursue the question in discovery. Specifically, that means asking interrogatories regarding whether the debt has ever been sold, and if so, to whom.
It Can Be Hard to Know Who Is Suing You
My new-found skepticism on this issue comes from talking with an ex debt collector who reports to me that debt collectors do (often, he says) sue in the name of the original creditor.
As I pointed out in In the Shoes of the Original Debt Collector, it is deceptive for the debt collector to pose as an original creditor. While certain of the rights of the debt collector are the same as, and are derived from, the rights of the original creditor, the law very definitely and explicitly regards debt collectors are different from original creditors. And original creditors are treated more favorably in the law than debt collectors. So it is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for debt collectors to bring suit pretending to be the original creditors. That is so obvious, and bringing suit in the name of the original creditor would be such a blatant violation of the law, that I have always doubted that any debt collectors would dare to do it.
I, of all people, should know better! However, it is still true that the mere fact that the petition says “this is a communication from a debt collector…” does not mean you are being sued by a debt collector and not the original creditor when the original creditor’s name is on the suit. Lawyers are often cautious, and do a lot of things by routine and with forms, and so they could have put the warning on there unnecessarily.
However, if you have any suspicion that your debt has changed hands, but you’re being sued in the name of the original creditor, you should explore the question in discovery. And if you find out you are, in fact, being sued by a debt collector, I suggest you very strongly consider bringing a counterclaim under the FDCPA for deceptive and unfair debt collection practices. It should be a winner.
Local Rules and Discovery Limits
The Local Rules are rules enacted by the specific court your case is in, and they often control the timing and form and number limits of discovery as well as containing extremely important information about how a trial will proceed and what you have to do to place evidence in front of the court. In other words, finding the local rules is absolutely crucial to defending yourself.
Rules of Civil Procedure
Let’s start with rules that every legal jurisdiction has: Rules of Civil Procedure. You can easily find these by Googling the name of your state and the phrase “rules of civil procedure.” Or you can go to Rules of Civil Procedure and find your jurisdiction.
Organization of Rules of Civil Procedure
In most jurisdictions, the rules of civil procedure are part of a larger body of court rules enacted by the legislature (in the states) or the Supreme Court (in the case of the federal rules). These are the rules that control every aspect of the legal process, from the qualifications and ethical rules of lawyers and judges, through the appeals and other “collateral” challenges. They cover everything, and they are, as much as possible, in an order related to how they would come up in an ordinary case. That means that for the most part, the rules controlling the beginning of a case – filing it and getting it served – are at the beginning of the rules, and stuff that comes later, like discovery, comes a few rules later. That will help you figure out where things are.
Federal Rules
In the federal jurisdictions, courts are governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Most of the jurisdictions also have what are actually called “local rules.” These rules are, in many courts, numbered exactly like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Which is to say that the Local Rules controlling discovery have the same number as the Rules of Civil Procedure that they are modifying. An example might make it easier to understand.
Federal Rule 26 is the general rule that controls discovery in federal cases – there are several other rules that apply to specific parts of the discovery process. Rule 26 provides a general framework for the discovery process, but it does not limit how many questions you are allowed to ask in interrogatories or what the form of those questions must be. That’s what the Local Rules do, fill out the general rules and apply various limits that will apply within certain “local” jurisdictions, so there is a “Local Rule 26.” The local rules might provide, for example, that a party can only ask 25 or 50 interrogatories, or that those interrogatories must take a certain form.
Other Jurisdictions
Other jurisdictions do NOT follow the federal rules. They have their OWN rules, starting, of course, with the state rules of civil procedure. They may have local rules that would govern your specific court or type of court, including, most likely, the discovery process. And some jurisdictions have “approved” interrogatories or requests for production. These are in a form that the courts have specifically ruled is acceptable, although that wouldn’t stop you from objecting on other grounds (e.g., that they are not relevant to your case).
It is beyond the scope of this article, or my materials generally, to provide the location of every jurisdiction’s rules. They all have different ones, if they have them at all (and not all courts do). Nevertheless, knowing those rules for your jurisdiction is crucial. You must find the rules that control the game you are playing.
Finding the Local Rules
In the federal courts – which will only apply where you have brought a claim under a federal consumer protection law – finding the local rules is simple. You can either look it up in the federal website for your jurisdiction under “local rules” or ask a court clerk to point you in the right direction.
It’s tougher in the state courts. In the state courts, you start with finding the correct rules of civil procedure. As I have often pointed out, debt cases are often brought in courts of lower jurisdiction – called “Associate Circuit Courts” in Missouri, for example. These courts often operate on slightly different rules than the Circuit Courts which must follow the state rules of civil procedure. Sometimes the rules for your court will be embodied in a special rule within the rules of civil procedure, and sometimes the rules will occupy their own area of the rules of civil procedure.
First, figure out what jurisdiction you are actually in. Is it the courts of general jurisdiction? Or is it some sort of more limited court? At the top of the petition will be a header that looks like this:
In the Associate Circuit Court
of St. Louis County
State of Missouri
That tells you what your jurisdiction is. Google that court. So in this case, Google “Associate Circuit Court,” “St. Louis County,” and “Rules of Civil Procedure.” This will bring up references to the specific rules that control your jurisdiction. Or go to your court’s website and look up “Rules of Civil Procedure” or “rules of court” or “local rules” or something like that and see if you can find the rules that will control your case.