I know I’ve discussed whether you should seek a jury trial before, but I want to give it a new look for this set of videos. In my view, debt defendants should always ask for jury trials if they have the right to them, and most of them do have that right.
Your Right under the Constitution
Under constitutional law, you have a right to jury trial under the 7th amendment for most “legal” claims. “Legal” in this sense is a term of art referring to the historical development of the English courts. Suffice it to say that most claims “sounding in” breach of contract are “legal” claims. Account stated, on the other hand, is not, so if the credit card company is suing you ONLY for account stated, you probably don’t have a right to jury trial, but for almost all other credit card or loan based claims you do. And if the plaintiff is suing you for breach of contract and account stated, you will have a right to jury trial that will, in all likelihood, control the whole case.
So most of the people watching this video or reading this article will have a right to jury trial. Should you take it?
I think yes for a couple of reasons.
Judges and Lawyers Take Jury Trials More Seriously
The primary reason is that judges and the other side will take jury trials more seriously. This means that the judge will be much more careful about what kinds of evidence to allow the jury to see, and since that is the heart of much of our defense, this is a very good thing. It isn’t that a judge should allow hearsay to affect his or her decision, it’s that the judge will pay much closer attention to your argument that something IS hearsay if he or she is worried about a jury hearing it. It’s just a more serious kind of case.
And the second reason is that it IS a more serious kind of case. Although a judge-held trial could last half an hour, a jury trial will be measured in hours or possibly days if there are any complications. That’s because the jury has to be selected, as much as anything, and that takes time. The difference in cost of attorney time could easily be a thousand dollars, and debt collectors don’t like to put that kind of money into cases like this. It’s just the way they do business, not that they fear them or anything.
Jury Trials are NOT Scary
But should you fear them?
It might sound like a jury trial is a bigger deal for a shy or intimidated person, and it is true that they are somewhat more complicated, and you’re playing to people in the jury rather than just the judge. But although that’s true, you will probably find, in real life, that it doesn’t matter. Juries are just as easy to talk to as judges, and if you’re caught up in your case it’s probably even easier to talk to the jury. They’re much more like you than the judge is.
There are factors you’ll need to consider as you prepare for the case, but in making your decision on whether or not to demand a jury that’s probably all you need to know. The judge will be more serious, the defendant will like the case less, and the jury will be easier to talk to than the judge. In general. So we suggest you ask for a jury trial. Find out your court’s rules on asking for one before you file your answer if that is possible.
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What to Expect as a Poor Person in a Rich Man’s Game
You may have heard that “justice is blind,” which oddly enough was meant to suggest that justice is fair in America – it’s blind to class and race, and all the rest, supposedly. But if you’re being sued for debt you’ve probably heard of another saying: “it’s a big club, but you aren’t in it.”
I’m afraid that second saying is probably more relevant to what you can expect in the courts. If you’re going it pro se, that is to say representing yourself, you’re going to have some trouble getting the
attention of most judges. They’re not going to value what you say as much as they’d value what a lawyer would say, especially a lawyer for a corporation. Most judges are on that side of the fence, and they’re DEFINITELY from that side of the tracks, if you know what I mean.
So let’s just say there’s an institutional bias – prejudice – against you. But I am saying “most” judges, after all, and some don’t share that bias.
And as a general rule judges do have a sense of fair play as far as playing by the rules, although again this is just a “general rule.” If they care about the outcome of a case, I’d say they can be pretty results driven, never minding the rules, but in fact most of them do NOT care about the outcome of debt cases. On the whole they seem not to like them, and we’ve all heard that debt collectors are notoriously heartless and… dirty. The judges are aware of all this, and I think they do regard them, on the whole, as the vultures of the legal kingdom. Judges often come from the more high profile sort of law.
But these are generalizations, and you should observe for yourself what your judge is like.
And here’s yet another general rule of the courts: the judges regard cases involving less than a couple
of million dollars as being sort of trifling and not worth their time. That’s a thing you should never forget. It’s a question of who they blame for your case wasting their time. I think they start with the sense that YOU are to blame, if you bother defending yourself, but this can change, and we want it to change. You didn’t bring the suit, after all, but you are one of the few meaningfully opposing the debt collectors, and so the judges might blame you for that. It has often seemed that way to me, anyway.
This is all hardly a ringing endorsement of the process, I know, but probably nothing new to you, either.
So why do I still think you have an excellent chance of winning if you fight these cases? Because the debt collectors really don’t usually have what they need to prove the things they need under the rules, and courts do have respect for rules. They’ll forgive corporate counsel a few transgressions, but in the final analysis they want the rules to be followed, and the case can be reversed on appeal if they don’t. So you have your chance.
And judges are people. The more time you spend with them, providing you keep your goals in mind, the more the judges will like you, the more they’ll listen to what you have to say. And you will have the law on your side. That does matter. It usually makes all the difference if you know what you’re doing.
And that’s why we’re here – to make sure you do know what you’re doing. Just be aware that whatever
they say about cutting a break for non-lawyers in the justice system – and they do in certain unimportant ways – you’re probably going to be held to a higher standard than the lawyer representing the debt collector rather than a lower one. You’re going to have to know more and do a better job than the other side.
You can do that, it just takes work and a certain humility. The lawyers on the other side are not the greatest legal minds. The debt collection business draws business people, and the business they’re in
means they won’t spend a lot of time on your case. They won’t have a lot of the stuff they need or the
time to get it. Your job is to show that to the judge in a way he or she will listen to. It’s a challenge, but it can usually be done. We’ll be helping you.
The lawyers for the other side have a job to do, and that’s to beat you. Some of them will treat you with respect, and others with contempt (which will be controlled), but remember their job, and however they present themselves to you it will be part of their overall plan to beat you. Don’t expect to go out with them for drinks after it’s all over.
http://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.png00Ken Giberthttp://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.pngKen Gibert2023-02-25 23:06:412023-02-25 23:22:36What to Expect as a Poor Person in a Rich Man’s Game
People often ask me what they should get first from Your Legal Leg Up. To me, the answer is obvious, and it’s both the first and last thing you’ll pay for in most cases: the 20-20 membership. It’s the best we offer both in value and price. It’s so much better than the other options, in fact, that I almost feel guilty when people buy anything else, but sometimes they do, and there could be reasons one of the other memberships would be right for you, so I’ll talk briefly about your other options at the end of this article.
Teleconferences
All of our memberships include access to our teleconferences, and I’m not aware of any other program that offers anything like that.
What teleconferences are is an opportunity to ask questions in real time. You can ask about what things mean, what the bad guys might be driving at or trying to accomplish with something they’re doing, and how you might respond. We’ll help direct you to sources of information or guide your research. Sometimes you might just want to know where you are in your case, what a word means, or how to say or search for something… stuff like that.
Sometimes you’ll just need some encouragement and a reminder to keep up the good work because
working steadily is important but difficult in legal work, where there are deadlines that can be months away, but you forget how much time things take even aside from doing the work itself.
And sometimes you’ll want to hear other people who in the same boat as you are. Debt defense pro se can be a lonely process, but there are a lot of people trying to defend themselves. You can talk to them, and we offer encouragement and coaching as well as more substantive help too. People who use it find it enormously helpful. We can’t offer legal advice – you’d have to pay between $150 – 250 per hour to get that – but consider it a very active form of coaching and help.
Teleconferences currently happen three times per week and members can come to any and all of them. They’re scheduled for an hour each, but often go above that amount of time because I want everyone with a question to get it answered. If need be, we’ll increase the number of teleconferences per week to make it easier to get those questions answered.
Fees and Prices – Why the 20-20 Membership is Best
Most of our memberships involve a registration fee and a monthly payment, but the 20-20 only requires one payment for a full year that will be less than the other memberships for a year. The other memberships offer discounts on our digital products, but with the 20-20 you get all the digital products for free.
In other words, for one price you get all of our digital products and access to all the materials on the website for a year in addition to the teleconferences. The digital products which are designed to make the whole process easier and more effective, and the many articles and videos should help you get a deeper understanding of specific topics as well. You don’t get any “bonuses” because you get everything with the membership.
Materials You’ll Get – You Get ALL Digital Products we Offer
Maybe that’s all you need to know, but if you like to see it all before you make a decision, I’ll say you get all the digital products on our comprehensive product page. This includes numerous reports, including among others, Got Debt, Assignment Contracts, and Three Weaknesses Almost All Debt Collectors Have, the Manuals for Debt Litigation, Debt Negotiation, and Credit Repair, and all the Motions Packets, including the Motion to Vacate Default, Motion to Dismiss, Motion to Compel, and Motion for Summary Judgment. There will be others, too. You will also get our Model Discovery Pack and, if you live in either California or Pennsylvania, products relevant to those areas.
And you’ll get access to all the hundreds of articles on our site. Many are free to the general public, but many others are restricted by level of membership. As a 20-20 member you get them all. Go here to sign up for the membership now, be sure to click on the 20-20 membership option.
Why Such a Good Deal?
I know this is going to sound like sales talk, but the 20-20 is a much better offer than we’ve ever made, and some explanation might help it make sense. There are two reasons, one selfish, and one not so selfish, for making this offer.
The selfish reason is that I’ve noticed that when people get sued they regard the law suit as a major priority and will pay what they have to (if they can) to give themselves a chance to win. That makes a lot of sense to me. But if they sign up for a monthly membership, there often comes a time when the case is less scary, or there comes a time when they need to buy a product but don’t have the money. So they cut corners and skip a product. That lowers their chance of winning, which isn’t good for Your Legal Leg Up’s reputation. It’s very important that you all win if at all possible, so making a deal which will never make you cut corners makes good business sense to me. And it’s why I’m here in the first place.
The other reason is just that I can do it. The products are here (and the work has been done, though they are sometimes revised), and I want you to be able to do your best work and get your best results without always having to sweat gallons. You’ll have plenty to do, but we can make things a lot easier. So I want to do that and am fine with making a little less than I might in to do it.
The Other Memberships
I mentioned the other types of membership a little bit above. Those are the Gold, Platinum and Diamond memberships. The main advantage with them is that if you show up and the debt collector gives up just because you do, you’ll save money because you won’t be paying for things you don’t us. Don’t laugh, that can happen. And it does happen maybe 1 percent of the time. They’re looking for an easy, automatic victory, and just by answering you make them decide to go away. Like I said, that happens about 1% of the time as far as I can tell. To be frank, nobody that’s happened to felt bad about getting the 20-20, but it’s a fact that a monthly membership would have cost less in that situation. Just about any other situation, though, and the 20-20 will save you a bunch of money and a ton of time and worry.
We are introducing two new types of membership, the 20-20 and 20-20 plus. Right now, the difference is just how long they last, but it is likely that there will be some special content or materials for 2020+ before too long.
If you have watched the videos at the Overview of Litigation page, you know why we’re offering these products and why I think they’re a great deal. I will outline the new memberships briefly below.
First and mainly, the 20-20 membership will be a “pay-once” program. For a flat price you will receive all membership benefits for 12 months. This should get you all the way through to the end of any litigation you are involved in now. You won’t buy anything else from us or be charged again. Here’s what the 20-20 membership includes:
Teleconferences – currently we have them twice per week. Depending on need, that number could increase so that people regularly have an opportunity to ask questions in real time.
Access to member-only materials, including what used to be called the document bank. This gives you access to materials that have been created for a variety of different real-life situations as well as a large number of articles addressing the situations most debt litigants encounter. In other words, the 20-20 is a full membership, and you get everything members ever get.
Free access to all of our products. You won’t have to buy anything anymore. If you need a motion to compel pack, for example, you can download it for free. And that’s true of all of our materials that are currently for sale.
Specifically, that includes the Debt Defense Litigation Manual, the Three Weaknesses Almost every Debt Collector Has and how to Use them, materials on assignment contracts (not yet, but soon, a product), the Legal Research and Analysis report, and much more.
Comparison to Other Memberships
You can check the prices, but you’ll find that, added up, these materials and benefits would cost at least $1,000, so this is by far the lowest price we’ve ever offered. The 20-20 (regular) will cost $250 for 12 months, and the 20-20+ will cost $300 for 18 months. These prices will stay good at least through February 15.
Our other memberships are designed more on a pay-as-you-go basis. They all include at least two teleconferences per week, with the possibility of increasing as necessary to allow you to get questions asked and answered. Beyond that, they offer general access to most documents in what used to be called the document bank. And they have a graduated discount on specific products you might need. Our goal was to let people get and pay for what they need but not other stuff.
That turns out not to be ideal for some, since it involves repeated billing (monthly) and occasional extra expense when they need a new product. If you prefer, though, this membership remains available.
Our 20-20 memberships eliminate the repeated and occasional costs. Pay once up front and get it all for a year (20-20) or year and a half (20-20+). The overall price will be much lower than one of the other memberships if you end up needing one or more products, as most members will. I say that because if you need a discovery pack and any one motion pack you’re already saving money, and it is likely that you will need those things. Many members need much more.
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This article is a brief but important discussion about “evidence,” what it is, how it works, and what to do about it. I get a lot of questions about “striking” documents at various times in a lawsuit, so this may help with that, too. While this article is intended to be a stand-alone article, it is also a part of our Glossary of Legal Terms, where we explain legal concepts and language to non-lawyers. Please feel free to use that resource if you run into a legal term you don’t understand.
But in this article we discuss something that most people understand a little bit about.
What is Evidence?
In a way, evidence is just “stuff.” It’s stuff that is supposed to relate to a case, so let’s start by introducing the concept of “relevance,” which is the formal way in which material relates to a case.
Relevance
Something is “relevant” if it makes some fact that matters to your case (is “material” to your case, in legalese) somewhat more or less likely to be considered true. A bank statement, for example, might be relevant to show how much you owe, or that it is your account.
It doesn’t have to “prove” it. Just make it more or less likely, and of course some evidence is much, much more convincing than other things might be. In debt law, the “credibility” of evidence actually rarely matters because what the debt collectors typically use are credit card statements and other things like that. For some reason the courts almost always believe them, despite all the stories of how often they’re wrong.
In any event, this video will presume that the “evidence” of which we are speaking is relevant. But you should never just do that. Always consider the question of relevance as one of the important first questions. Does it impact on something the debt collector must prove to establish its case? Anything else is not relevant and should be objected to on that basis.
How is Evidence Used
So what turns this relevant stuff into “evidence?”
The “stuff” becomes “evidence” when you ask the court to consider it for some specific purpose. That is deceptively simple, and you might think it doesn’t mean anything. But it means a lot, actually. It means that when a debt collector attaches statements or affidavits to its petition, it is NOT evidence, unless the petition is a “verified petition” where somebody is swearing that the allegations, and the evidence attached are true. Those are quite rare, but if you have one, you will have to verify your answer as well. So in that situation the stuff is a lot like evidence.
However, we need not consider that further because in almost all debt cases, there isn’t a verified petition, and the documents attached are NOT evidence in any present sense.
This in turn suggests that a motion to strike the attachments is pointless, and you should also be aware that the plaintiff is not trying to prove its case – so a motion to dismiss for lack of evidence is also pointless at that stage.
Stuff generally becomes “evidence” at two times in a case.
On an “evidentiary motion.”
And at trial.
An evidentiary motion is a motion that calls for some sort of proof. Most typically, that would be a motion for summary judgment, but a motion to dismiss for failure to serve would also involve proof of that failure. Likewise, motions to compel require that you show the court certain facts, and motions for sanctions can involve much more involved fact finding.
And a motion to vacate is also going to require some very specific evidence.
But in most of these situations you’re simply presenting evidence to show a rational person could believe something – you’re not asking the court actually to believe it. In motions for summary judgment you’re asking the court to find, decisively, that certain facts are established beyond dispute, and at trial you’re asking the fact finder to believe you and not the other person.
Evidence is always Evidence of Something
In any event, we now have stuff that has become evidence. It’s always evidence of SOMETHING. Right?
It’s supposed to show some specific, important thing is true or not true. And of course evidence could show more than one thing is true or not true, which is important.
Evidence is always evidence of some fact or facts, in other words. You don’t move to “strike” it. You OBJECT to it when the other side tries to get the court to consider it. You object to its being used to prove some specific fact (but maybe not some other fact).
Admissibility
Before the court can consider the evidence, it first must decide whether it is “admissible” (It has to decide whether it can consider it.)
We talk a lot about admissibility in other materials, because most debt cases are decided based on
whether evidence – usually affidavits and bank statements – is admissible. Your objection to evidence is to its admissibility. In other words, you are asking the court not to consider the evidence at all. At a jury trial, it’s important to do this before the evidence is seen by the jury, so you object to the question asked (rather than the answer given) if possible, or you object when the other side asks to show it to the jury.
Remember that it is possible to have evidence admitted for one thing but not another thing. Suppose you’re claiming, for example, that you sent a request for verification, but they never verified before suing you. Your copy of the letter would be proof of what the request said. Your testimony that you sent the letter would be proof that you sent it, but you would ALSO need some proof that they received it. Hence it makes sense to send them by certified mail.
The letter itself is admissible about the contents of the request but not the receipt.
Normal people are not used to breaking things down in this way, and this turning of everything into an elaborate flow-chart takes some getting used to. But you need to think that way both to get your own evidence admitted, and also – more importantly in debt cases – to attack the debt collector’s evidence.
Remember that if the debt collector manages to get credit card statements admitted into evidence that will almost always be fatal to your defense.
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.
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Most of the time when people talk about motions to vacate they’re talking about motions to vacate a default that occurred as a result of failure to respond to a properly served lawsuit. There is another kind of motion to vacate, though, for people where the court did not have proper jurisdiction. If that’s your situation, this is a better way.
A Quick Review
Once a lawsuit is properly served on a defendant, the court has “jurisdiction” (the power to address the claims made in the suit) at least provisionally. If a defendant fails to respond appropriately to such a suit, the plaintiff will probably get a default order and judgment. That is what happens in a large majority of debt cases.
An “appropriate” response that will prevent a default judgment is either:
An Answer, or
a motion to dismiss the suit.
It is also possible to file a motion “for more definite statement” in some states, as well. The point is, though, that every allegation in the petition must either be moved against or answered. If that happens, a default judgment should never be issued.
If you fail to answer and the court awards a default judgment, you can ask the court to give you another chance by asking it to “vacate” the default and allow you to defend the case. I discuss what this is, what the time limits are, and how to do it in several articles, see, e.g., Overcoming Default Judgments.
Voidable Judgments
But what if the court does NOT have or get proper jurisdiction over you?
This can happen in two common ways: the debt collector does not manage to serve you properly; or the debt collector sues you in a court that doesn’t have power over you (because you live somewhere else). Other ways are possible, but these are by far the most common.
If you find out that you are being sued in a court that lacks jurisdiction before judgment, you can move to dismiss the case on that basis, but that can defeat the whole purpose of the rule – since in order to do so you would have to appear (“specially”) in the court to do it, and if you’re far away, that’s impractical. Another way to handle the situation is to let the court rule and then attack the judgment in the correct court. That also has significant drawbacks, so if you know about the situation before judgment, it can present a tough question.
But most people do not learn about suits where the courts lack jurisdiction before judgment. They find out about them later. What do you do if that happens?
No Authority, No Judgment
The good news is that there is NO time limit on a voidable judgment. The court never had authority to enter the judgment, and “all” you have to do is establish that fact. You can do that at any time, and it completely undoes the judgment. It is called “void ab initio,” meaning “from the beginning” as if it never existed.
Burden of Proof
The bad news is that you can have a high burden of proving that the court did not have authority over you. Most courts require you to present “clear and convincing” evidence of the facts that you were not subject to the court’s jurisdiction. In the case of residency – you were living in California but sued in Florida, that isn’t necessarily so hard.
In the case of sewer service – where you weren’t served, but the process server swore you were, it can be much more of a challenge. Still, almost everybody I’ve known who tried it succeeded. That’s because the process servers normally describe the person to whom they theoretically gave the petition, and they usually won’t know your age or body shape, and often guess incorrectly your gender and race. If their affidavit says they served a woman 5’2” eyes of blue and you’re obviously not that, you’re good. Other things obviously aren’t as easy to prove.
What you Have to Prove
You have to prove by good evidence that the court lacked jurisdiction over you.
What you Do Not Have to Prove
You won’t have to prove you made any mistake (you didn’t) or that the substance of the judgment (i.e., you owe $2,000) was wrong in any way. You do not need to allege or prove any “defense” to the suit, in other words. Attack the jurisdiction, and the case goes away.
What you Should Not Have to Prove
You shouldn’t have to prove you didn’t receive notice of a sewer service filing. Suppose, for example, you found it in the trash in a nearby dumpster. Most courts require proper service and not “notice” of the suit. But I’m afraid you can’t count on the courts to apply that rule consistently. You will not want to offer proof or any indication that you heard about the case in any way prior to judgment. If you became alerted to the fact that a process server was around and do some research in the court files, you will want to disguise the fact and cover your trail.
Special State Rules
The rules for this sort of motion to vacate are NOT the easily found rules in the rules of civil procedure. You must research your state’s rules for voidable judgments and follow whatever rules you find there.
Products Related to this Article
We do not have a product directly related to this article if you are moving to void a judgment. You may find our Motion to Vacate Pack helpful in showing you the form of motions and proof, but it does not contemplate the rules you would need to follow. I emphasize, again, that in filing a motion to void a judgment entered without jurisdiction, you would not want or need to include a “proposed Answer,” and you would not need to allege a defense (although claiming a defense wouldn’t hurt and might help).
You would probably find our memberships useful, particularly if the situation with the debt collector that brought you here is not the only one you’re facing.
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.
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Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) and Debt Law – Fact and Fiction
To download a free copy of this article in pdf format, click here: The UCC not a Defense
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) offers no special protection from debt collection or debt collectors, and trying to use it that way will quickly lead to a judgment against defendants. Avoid this scam.
Introduction
There is an extremely vocal group of people who think that the U.C.C. offers special protections from debt collectors. They choose snippets of the text of the U.C.C. and highlight them in numerous videos on Youtube and in their other promotions, and they attack anyone who contradicts them. Like the (very similar) Strawman theory, however, the U.C.C. is a slender reed to support your hopes of avoiding or defeating creditors and debt collectors.
In fact, it does essentially nothing to help debt defendants. We’ll discuss the U.C.C. and then tell you what you should be doing instead of tripping over strawmen.
What is the Uniform Commercial Code?
The U.C.C. is just a model of commercial legislation for state governments to use in designing their own commercial laws. In itself, it has no legal force whatsoever, but all the states have adopted some parts of it, so most of the provisions of the UCC are incorporated into various state laws. Oddly enough, perhaps, the “Uniform” Commercial Code is NOT uniform – its drafters could not agree on every provision, and so there are competing provisions which are not the same, and thus state laws can vary on important parts of the commercial code.
Because of the federalized times we live in, and because most people confine their legal affairs to just one state, our daily lives rarely expose us to different state laws and their consequences. Still, state laws can differ both from state to state and from state to federal, and they often overlap in ways familiar to most lawyers (but out of the site of non-lawyers). The U.C.C. was designed to smooth out the way the laws overlap.
It all sounds non-controversial now, but at the time it was a big step towards protecting and encouraging interstate commerce, and in fact the U.C.C. was under construction at about the time the interstate highway system was developed.
How the UCC was Created
The U.C.C. was created by two nongovernmental legal organizations: The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and the American Law Institute. The document, standing alone, has no legal authority or power at all.
This is not saying the UCC is not significant – just that it is a document created by a bunch of academics that has no independent force or impact on anybody. So why is the UCC a big deal? It’s a big deal because all the states have adopted some portions of it. The UCC was designed to help legislators bring order to what was there, not force them to have the same laws. Remember, legislatures make laws, not think tanks.
The parts of the U.C.C. that have become law in your state will be reflected in your state laws, and you should look for the law in your state laws and not the U.C.C. itself. When people say “the U.C.C. does this or that,” or “requires this or that,” they’re showing you they do not understand the law. Don’t look to these people to tell you how to beat the debt collectors. Likewise, since the portions of the UCC that were adopted are just part of your state law they do NOT trump other laws and have no special, magical power.
The UCC Was Created to Serve Businesses, not Consumers
The main concerns of the drafters of the U.C.C. were the rights and abilities of businesses in relation to each other. The drafters believed that a set of laws that made businesses more predictable and reduced conflict would benefit everyone, but their concern was with business, not consumer, protection. A mere glance at the document will prove the point – it defines “bills of lading” and discusses where legal responsibility and risk shift from party to party in commercial transactions and things like that rather than the issues that concern consumers. Where the issues do have an impact on consumers, there are usually laws that override the U.C.C. and specify consumer rights.
There is almost no discussion of debt at all in the U.C.C. or in the state laws enacting it. Debt, and most particularly consumer debt, has primarily been addressed by a series of federal laws like, for example, the Truth in Lending Act and state laws based on these federal laws.
You CAN beat the debt collectors in many cases, and without even having to hire a lawyer – but your solutions will most often be in consumer protection laws like the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or Fair Credit Reporting Act, or in the normal rules of the court.
We help you do that.
Your Legal Leg Up
Your Legal Leg Up is a website and business dedicated to helping people defend themselves from debt lawsuits without having to hire a lawyer. As you can see below, we have a number of products as well as memberships that should help you wherever you are in the process. In addition to that, our website is a resource for all. Many of the articles and materials are reserved for members, but many are available to everyone.
Products Related to this Article
We have no products related to this article because you the article addresses your fundamental approach to debt defense. You would probably find our memberships useful, however, and we have materials designed to address specific situations as they arise.
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.
http://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.png00Ken Giberthttp://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.pngKen Gibert2019-12-02 20:04:562019-12-25 03:47:29The UCC is NOT a Defense to Debt Collectors
Why you Should Defend against Debt Collectors, and Why you Can Do it Yourself
Get a copy of this article in PDF format by clicking here: why defend yourself
When you are sued by a debt collector, you are presented with two questions that often merge into one because of money.
Should you defend yourself (at all) from the lawsuit?
And if you do defend, do you have to have a lawyer?
A lot of people answer the second question first. They decide they need to have a lawyer in order to get anything done, and then they decide they cannot afford a lawyer, so they fail to defend themselves at all. This is a mistake.
First: Should you defend yourself?
Our answer to this question is absolutely “Yes.”
There is a tendency for people to think that lawsuits (filed against them) are only filed because the lawsuit is “good,” and that the plaintiff will or should win. That isn’t really true of any kind of lawsuit. In most kinds of law, however, the plaintiff’s lawyer will have done some research into the law and facts and will have some confidence that it’s a winner. After all, in most kinds of lawsuit, one expects a defense – the lawyer anticipates spending a considerable amount of time and money on the case before collecting anything significant.
And most plaintiffs are at least somewhat reluctant to start a lawsuit because of time and expense; often they are extremely reluctant, and with good reason.
Debt Law is Different
These things are simply not true of debt cases. In debt cases, a debt purchaser buys hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of supposed debt and files suit without ever doing ANY research into the validity of the debt at all. When they file suit, very few debt collectors have any idea at all of whether they have a right to the money, and they have little, if any, evidence of the debt. They think they might be able to get some if they have to, but they file suit expecting not to need any evidence at all. And they’re usually right.
They Expect you to Give Up
They design their cases to cause people to give up without fighting. Since most people, in fact, do give up one way or another, the whole debt collection business is based on not spending money or time on a case. As soon as you do anything at all to defend, you cause the company to diverge from its business model. Of course, they know some people won’t just give up – they know people hate them, after all. So even though you have stepped out of their business model by resisting, you haven’t really challenged them yet. To challenge them, you must make them spend time and money on your case alone. We’ll discuss that below.
What if you Don’t Want to Fight?
Actually, NO ONE really wants to fight. It takes time and involves various uncomfortable feelings, from insecurity to anger, to frustration. You will at some point need to weigh these lifestyle questions, but the appropriate place to start is with the legal questions. And our answer to those is that it makes sense, always, to fight the debt collector.
Regarding the more practical questions, it is also usually true that fighting the debt collector will pay off very well. For example, if they’re suing you for $5,000, it’s a fair bet that they have already damaged your credit, and they are obviously trying to get at least $5,000 from you. If you defend yourself, you can save the $5,000 and repair your credit: what hourly rate would that be if it took you 50 hours of your time? $100/hour.
And the amount at stake is often much more than $5,000, and the time required to defend often much less than 50 hours, but you will have to make your own estimates of these things.
What if you Really Think you Owe the Money?
We get this question a lot because for most people, debt lawsuits are not “lightning from a clear blue sky,” as the saying goes. They know they haven’t been paying some bill, and people have often been bugging them about it. So should you still fight?
Yes, absolutely.
And this is because although you think you owe money, you might not owe the person suing you the money, and you might not owe what they’re suing you for. On top of that, and behind our legal system, is that you only “owe” what they can prove you owe – and most debt collectors cannot prove you owe anything. So even if you think you owe, you should fight to make sure you’re dealing with the right person for the right amount – and that they can prove it.
What if you Want to Settle?
If you hope to settle, you still need to start out by fighting – people only settle lawsuits when they think doing so is the best outcome for them. In other words, they’ll settle if you persuade them that they’ll make more money by settling than by not settling. You do that by fighting – nothing makes them think the case is going to take money to win than by making them spend money. That’s just common sense, right?
Do You Need a Lawyer to Defend You?
The answer to the question of whether to fight or not is almost always “yes.” And if you doubt that, consider how many times corporations simply roll over when people sue them – it almost never, ever happens. You know that, right? But even if you decide you should fight, you have to decide HOW to fight. Do you need a lawyer? or can you do this by yourself?
Remember what we said about “most” lawsuits – the lawyers do back up work and have a pretty good idea they deserve to win. Additionally, they typically expect to, and do, spend quite a bit of time and money to make sure they do win. For these reasons, and others, you might not want to handle a typical lawsuit pro se.
Debt law is not like that at all.
Debt Law is Different
We discuss this question in great detail in a lot of places, and therefore we will only touch on it lightly here, but debt law is not like other forms of litigation. It will almost always come down to a dispute about whether certain records should be allowed as evidence. And of course you need not to admit or do things that will hurt you. You almost certainly will not need witnesses, and they probably won’t have any, either. Thus debt law is relatively simple, and people can defend themselves without a lawyer.
We can help you do that in a lot of ways.
You will find a lot of help on many topics related to debt law on this site by using our search button at the top of the page or in the footer. And you can sign up for free information by going to this link and signing up. Sign up for Free Information.
http://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.png00Ken Giberthttp://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.pngKen Gibert2019-07-17 18:06:212020-01-09 14:03:17Why Defend Yourself from Debt Collectors
You have learned, one way or another, that you are being sued for a debt. If so, you are in a club containing many millions of people, but you probably feel all alone. What do you do? And how do you do it? Where do you turn, and who can help?
Since you’re here, you know that WE can help. We help people beat the debt collectors and protect what’s theirs.
Fight
We don’t make any bones about it – we think that if you’re sued by a debt collector you have a great chance of winning. And if you lose, it hardly ever costs you anything more than not fighting would have done. If you want to settle, you always start by fighting because debt collectors never settle to make YOUR life easier, they only settle make themselves more profit, and if you fight you instantly drive the value of the suit down in their eyes. Thus you have everything to gain and little to lose in most situations. You should fight.
Lawyer or Not?
We’ve addressed this question many times in various posts, and we do in our First Response Kit, too. But for this article we’re just going to talk about the cost of a lawyer. For most of our members, the cost of a lawyer is the most important thing, and they are expensive.
The average lawyer in a city tries to make $200 per hour these days. They’re running a business, have a staff, and need to make a profit. In debt defense, they also know that not everyone is able to pay. Thus, those who do pay, have to pay more.
With $200 per hour as a target, the lawyer either has to charge you that as an hourly rate or create a flat fee that will, she hopes, bring that average return. Through it all, most people discussing legal fees with us say that lawyers are trying to get them to pay at least $2,500 for their cases. For most people, this is simply too much, and the lawyer will want much of that up-front. So lawyers are simply out of reach for most people in debt trouble.
But here’s the thing: debt law, unlike most kinds of law, is well-suited to pro se (self-representation) defense. And with a little help from us, you’ll know more than most lawyers you talk to will know about this kind of law anyway.
Debt Law is Good for Pro Se Defense
There are a few reasons debt law is good for pro se defense. First, debt law is mostly about rules of evidence. They’re going to want to get some records into evidence, and you’re going to want to stop them from doing that. If you can keep those records out and avoid a few basic mistakes, you should win. This is not the kind of law that involves extensive testimony or cross-examination – you won’t need to be brilliant. You will need to do basic things that you can learn – we can teach you.
The other main reason debt law is good for self-representation is economic. They want to make $200 per hour, but you don’t have to get that much. And the debt collector/lawyer is trying to get that from half of what he can collect from you (the debt buyer gets the other half), while you’re saving 100 percent of what you can save. Thus you can spend more time on the case. It’s your life, and it matters more to you than anyone else. Every time you do something to defend yourself the lawyer on the other side will be worried about whether she’ll get paid for working on your case – this is a big, big advantage.
What to Do?
Your defense will start with an answer or a motion. Our First Response Kit will guide you through that. We also suggest that you get right onto the process of discovery, and the First Response Kit will do as much to help make that easy for you as possible. It includes samples of all the documents you’ll probably need. You’ll have to do SOME work for sure, but it doesn’t get any easier for you than this.
Our First Response Kit
A great place to start your defense is our First Response Kit. It helps you consider your chances of winning (vs. not fighting at all) and whether to fight, whether to get a lawyer, and if you’re going to represent yourself, how to do that. We get you started with a sample Answer and sample discovery that you can modify to fit your situation. This is as easy a way to get started with your defense as is possible. Read about it here.
https://yourlegallegup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/16953749.jpg1125750Ken Giberthttp://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.pngKen Gibert2019-06-18 18:43:102019-06-19 20:51:32Sued for Debt
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.
http://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.png00Ken Giberthttp://yourlegallegup.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YLLU_Main_Logo.pngKen Gibert2018-11-26 20:44:342018-11-26 20:44:34Do Our Materials Work against Original Creditors
