What Will It Cost?

We know you are concerned about what it might cost to hire an attorney knowledgeable in the area of consumer rights.  However, you'd need not be concerned that the cost will be prohibitive.  In fact, in the vast majority of the cases that we handle, the cost to the consumer is nothing at all unless we prevail for you.

Debt Collection Cases

With regard to debt collection cases, we work on contingency.  That means that you will not have to pay our attorney fees or any costs unless you prevail in your lawsuit.  And if you do prevail you can be sure that you will not have to pay anything out of your pocket.  The debt collector that we sue will pay us for our time, and our costs, and will also pay you for damages.  In California, consumers that are abused by debt collectors are sure to recover some amount of money when they win their lawsuit.

So, to be clear, you will never have pay us any attorney fees or costs unless you win your lawsuit.  The worst case scenario would be that you would lose your lawsuit and you would recover nothing.  In that case, you would still not have to pay us any attorney fees or costs.  We would simply absorb those fees and costs. That is, you would receive nothing, and we would receive nothing.  Because of this, we are very careful about what cases we take.  That means that if we agree to represent you you can be sure we are confident in your case.

Credit Card Defense Cases

Credit card defense cases are not the same as debt collection abuse cases.  The reason for this is simple.  With debt collection abuse cases the law provides that the other side must pay attorney fees and costs if the consumer prevails.  However, that is not the case when we defend you and you are being sued by someone. However, we can sometimes recover our attorney fees and costs even in those cases.  On those occasions, you will not be charged any attorney fees or costs.

In most credit card defense cases, you will be expected to provide an up front payment in the amount of 10% of whatever the debt is that is being sued upon, or a minimum of $750, plus any required court filing fee.  The court filing fees are normally around $200.  So, just as an example, if you are being sued for $8000, you would have to put up $800 plus a $200 court cost fee for a total of $1000.

It is possible that we will be able to recover that money from the other side if we win.  If that happens we will give you a refund.  The reason we are sometimes able to recover our attorney fees and costs is that the contract involved in the lawsuit sometimes requires this.  Furthermore, if there is any possible way to countersue the creditor and recover money under the debt collection statutes that we discuss at the top of this page we will also be able to recover our attorney fees and costs.  The point being, don't be too concerned about what is going to cost until you speak to us first.  We never charge you anything for a consultation, and during that consultation you can be sure that we will advise you on our opinion of your legal position, what we expect you to pay, and whether we expect to be able to recover what you pay back from the other side.