Please note: These resources and links are provided as a convenience and not as a service. Nothing on this website should be construed as legal advice.
JUDGMENTS UNDER $100,000.00.
CAJP.ORG : The California Association of Judgment Professionals is an organization to which many judgment collection specialists in CA belong. It has educational materials, a forum, a yearly convention, engages in pro judgment collection lobbying efforts, among other things. It has a list of members that judgment creditors can navigate, to find someone in their area to look at their judgment case and potentially assist in collecting it. *
SELF HELP
SMALL CLAIMS COURT: Disputes up to $12,500.00, can be easily resolved and turned into a judgment (if you are on the right side of the law/facts) which can later be enforced. You do not, and should not be trying to hire a law firm to handle debts/disputes in this amount, because it is not worth it, for you or for the firms. Small claims is fast, simple, and goes basically the way we all have seen it on Court TV. Things are even easier now with online filing, and in many cases, remote hearings. In Los Angeles, this webpage is a good resource. Other counties likely have their own as well.
Self Help Book on enforcing judgments and debts:
Rutter Guide, Enforcing Judgments and Debts.
This is basically the Bible if you are enforcing judgments – and if you are having trouble finding a lawyer to help you with it, this is a major resource you can use. It is expensive, but if you don’t mind an old edition that is maybe a couple years out of date, you can find it much cheaper, on eBay and other sites. **
Fair Credit Reporting Act – Whether you’re a debtor or a creditor, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to you. The Wikipedia entry on the FCPA is well written and may help to explain things in layman’s terms that are difficult to parse in the Act itself.
Fair Debt Collections Act – Another act designed to protect lenders of money, the Fair Debt Collections Act can sometimes be hard for non-attorneys to read. The Wikipedia page about the FDCA does a reasonable job of helping, but is no substitute for a lawyer’s aid.
Judicial Council Homepage – There are tons of self help resources here.
DetectiveForums.com – This site has some fairly decent self-help resources for those who want to do their own detective work. There is much more than just judgment recovery related stuff here, so any would-be detectives may want to have a look.
Judgment Interest Calculator: A handy tool which makes it easy to calculate what your judgment is currently worth (with accrued interest)
Post-Judgment Interest Calculator
*: Evanns Collection Law makes no warranties or guarantees about the competence of ethics of any judgment collector that can be found on CAJP, or anywhere else. Any collection company or individual collector should be carefully vetted and researched prior to signing up.
**:(Always verify information contained in past editions – they are past editions for a reason—things and laws do change. Past editions are still quite helpful but cannot be 100% relied upon as up to date.