11 tips to win your debt collection lawsuit in court

i'm george simons co-founder of solo suit and i'm going to show you 11 tips to win your debt collection lawsuit when it goes to court all right oftentimes in these videos i'm talking about debt lawsuits pre-court this is when it's actually in court when it's going to trial and you've got cases hearings all that kind of stuff going on all right 11 tips to win your debt collection lawsuit in court all right tip number one is dealing with how to get through discovery so basically just need to know what discovery is to get through it all right so there's disclosure and discovery uh so it once you once the complaint's filed and then you file like an answer then basically the court go the case goes into discovery so discovery is when the plaintiff and the defendant they correspond and they share documents with each other basically get everything out in the open and figure out what what actually this case is even about so there's a few ways to do that one you got depositions then that's like sworn testimony oftentimes it's video recorded of witnesses pre-trial uh then next one is an interrogatories these are written answers to questions and the third is the request for production of documents all right mostly small dollar debt collection lawsuits you're only going to deal with interrogatories and requests for productions so when they're requesting uh documents these are some kind of documents that oftentimes comes out in debt collection lawsuits uh so first up you have like a charge off this is like a document from the original creditor saying the debt was uh was was no longer being paid and they charged off the account uh you got payment history okay uh these are basically like an accounting of the debt along with a balance sheet and then a bill of sale okay the bill of sale is the document between the original creditor and the debt buyer saying that the original creditor is selling it to the debt collector so for example like you might have a debt with an american express american express charges off the account and then they sell the account to midland funding who then collects and sues you for that debt so all these documents probably come forth in discovery um if they aren't uh then there's a problem and the plaintiff probably won't be able to show that you actually owe the debt all right tip number two show up all right so that means uh show up by responding to the complaint also if you have like a hearing or a trial date or pre-trial conference show up on that date if you don't show up the judge isn't going to care about you and you're going to lose your lawsuit all right just like woody allen says 80 of life is just showing up so show up all right tip number three is have a theory of the case our theory of the case is basically like your theory like your idea for how you're going to win the lawsuit all right if you don't have an idea of how you're gonna win you're going to lose so come up with a theory of the case it can be as simple as saying uh the plaintiff the debt collector midland funding can't prove that actually owe the debt and therefore i'm going to win so that's it you just got to prove that they can't actually prove that you owe the debt and then you're good to go all right tip number four is to go to the pre-trial conference right this is pretty similar to tip number two uh oftentimes in these lawsuits there is a pre-trial conference it's basically uh where the parties and the judge meet then they go over some stuff together right uh the judgment will probably want to discuss like the schedule of the trial uh content of the trial whether or not i should go to arbitration or mediation or an alternative dispute resolution process and if there's a summary judgment that should be filed all right so again if you don't show up at the pre-trial conference you're probably gonna lose your case so show up number five make a trial notebook now this is what the pros are doing uh it's pretty simple i don't have to get too fancy you don't have to get too digital just get like a folder just get a stack of documents whatever put all the documents from the trial in that stack or in that folder keep them all together bring it with you to the trial all right so this includes like documents that are filed in court any evidence that you have any documentation around the debt that you have uh info about the parties info on any witnesses that you plan on bringing like your mom to say like hey my son doesn't know the debt anything like that just make a notebook keep it all together bring it with you all right that brings us to our next tip number six gather evidence all right make sure you get like the accounting of the debt make sure you look through all the documents that the plaintiff included in the complaint that might include like the bill of sale again the balance sheet for the debt uh the original contract for the credit card make sure you look through all that and find out where the debt collector is adding in extra fees all right what we oftentimes see somebody might have a legitimate thousand dollar debt with american express but then american express like sells that debt to the collector and then the collector adds on a bunch of fees bunch of attorneys fees a bunch of interest all of a sudden that thousand dollar debt turns into a three thousand dollar debt okay so that's why you're trying to stop in this lawsuit you might actually want to pay the amount that you owe but you shouldn't pay anything extra on top of that and so you gotta find your own evidence and make sure you have your own accounting of the debt to make sure you aren't paying anything extra tip number seven figure out whether you're gonna have a judge or a jury trial okay so as you might know the seventh amendment in the constitution guarantees everybody i can have everybody in a civil case can have a jury trial essentially but 38b of the federal rules of civil procedure requires that people request a jury trial okay so you aren't going to get a drink trial unless you really fight for it and like force the court to give it to you you might even have to pay extra money like hundreds of dollars to get a jury trial um so if you're just trying to make this like really long drawn out difficult painful process for the plaintiff you might want to go for a jury trial but if you guys want the simple process which most people get by default you're going to go with a judge trial and easily that's a pretty good way to go it's a lot simpler a lot less stuff for you to manage and worry about fun fact the seventh amendment only promises a jury trial to people that are being sued for amounts over twenty dollars all right still today like three hundred years after the constitution was written uh that twenty dollar still holds true uh so if you're being sued for like the toaster you bought uh walmart for like 19.99 uh sorry but you are out of luck tip number eight know the anatomy of a trial so know what's gonna happen before you get in there okay and i'm gonna tell you what happens when you start off a trial uh begins with opening statements okay so both sides get to make basically like their statements about whatever they want to lay out their case uh for the judge okay so the plaintiff the debt collector got soon yeah he's a go to ill get to say his part you'll get to say your part and then after that the plaintiff gets to make their case by asking witnesses questions it's important to note here that the burden of proof is on the plaintiff okay so what that means is that the plaintiff has to prove that you owe the debt it's not up to you to prove that you don't owe the debt you just have to stop the plaintiff from proving that you do owe the debt there's a little slight nuance there to keep in mind uh and then the defendant makes their case okay so you do the same thing by asking witnesses questions you can also cross-examine the plaintiff's witness okay this happens all the time in movies it's where you ask the other guys witness tough leading questions a leading question would be instead of saying what color was the house you'd say the house was yellow right and then the witness will be like oh yeah of course all right so this is the leading question where you get to uh you get them to say what you want to say another important point here is when you're presenting evidence ask permission of the judge first okay so ask the judge hey can i present this evidence to you and everybody else here and then once that's done then there are closing arguments it's again where you can kind of editorialize or just like make conjecture just kind of say uh you know i don't owe i don't know this debt just like say straight up therefore i shouldn't uh be forced to pay it and i should win this case after that if you're in a jury trial then there are jury instructions which are given to the jury and the jury has to make a deliberation based on those instructions so then the jury goes back in like a closed room and they think about stuff and fight and have lunch then they come back with hopefully a unanimous uh i mean unanimous decision in favor of you which means you get off the hook if it's a judge case then the judge might make a decision right there in in the court in in the trial or you might have to wait a while maybe up to 60 days for a written decision from the judge most likely he's just going to make a decision right then there all right tip number nine is to cross examine the other people's witness okay so that's probably how you're going to win the case if your lawsuit actually even goes to like trial or to a hearing how you're probably going to win is by cross-examining their witness you might not even have to bring your own witnesses at all because it's not up to you to prove anything it's up to them to prove everything so really what you have to do is you have to cross-examine their witness to prove that they don't know jack because they probably don't okay they probably don't know jack so just gotta show the judge that okay so a few a few points are here okay uh so the witness the plaintiff's key witness will be a person that works let's say it's middle in funding a person that works for the debt collector and they'll be testifying about the history of the debt and that midland funding actually has the right to sue you and collect on this debt your midland fundings attorney will be asking that witness questions the witness will probably be there on the phone probably isn't even going to be there because it's too expensive and then once that's done then you can cross-examine that witness so here are some questions uh you can straight up ask verbatim all right and preparing for your testimony today did you review the documents and the exhibits that you just testified about okay so you're gonna ask this to the witness on the phone you can just like read this off a piece of paper read a rental and then they'll say yeah and then you'll ask when did that happen and they'll say ah you know about like an hour ago maybe two hours ago and they'll be then you'll say before you reviewed them today did you ever review them previously and they'll be like nope and then you might be like oh well that's interesting basically means um you don't know anything about the case okay so but then the next thing that you say is have you ever been employed by the original creditor they'll say no i am and you'll say the original creditor ever trained you on how they keep their records let's say no then again the judge will be thinking oh you know this guy doesn't even know like how american express like keeps their accounting maybe they messed up the numbers somewhere isn't that interesting and next question you'll say prior to your testimony did you reach out to the original creditor to confirm the amount owed witness will say nope let's just be like oh seems like these guys aren't doing their due diligence and confirming this person owes the debt you could you probably just cut it off right there but if the bill of sale isn't included in the documents oftentimes we see that it is but if it isn't you can go ahead and go a little bit further you can say have you ever seen or read the bill of sale for the debt now the bill sells the document that gives them the right and ownership of the debt and the right to collect them uh to that question they'll say uh yes i have seen it and it'll ask because the bill has still been disclosed in this case and they say nope and you know you're just like planting seeds of doubt in the judge's mind and be like oh that's weird why isn't the bill sell presented maybe it's because they don't have the bill of sale maybe it's because they don't actually have the right to collect on this debt as we're trying to prove in this case is that people seeing you don't have the right to sue you for the debt or to collect on it so those are just some questions you can run through when cross-examining the plaintiff's witness uh the tenth tip i actually got a bunch of tips there's a bunch of quick tips laid out in here that'll just help you out i'm just going to run through them rapid fire here all right uh trial is freaking long just plan on being at the court for like most of the day like four hours plus uh trial and hearing are actually oftentimes the same things right so people will hear that they have a hearing schedule and like oh hearing doesn't sound that important actually oftentimes the hearing is the trial okay so if you're showing up at a hearing you're like be prepared you might want to call the court first be prepared to basically make this whole case in like an hour to the judge and then have it all resolved and wrapped up that said sometimes there are hearings that are just like preliminary then so like early events before the actual trial all right next know where your court is so you're not late have all your evidence ready make sure you know if you have child notebooks stick it in there bring it with you dress to impress all right this uh this video is about going to court that's why i'm dressed like this alright you know usually i'm just hanging out my my hawaiian shirts my flannels but today i dressed up fancy just to give you guys an idea of how you should look when you go to court all right if you dress like a scrub you'll be treated like a scrub and scrubs lose lawsuits right you don't want to lose a lawsuit so dress fancy dress nice shirt tie fancy dress whatever look good you'll get a better verdict for sure generally when you go to court you need to either be represented by uh yourself or by your lawyer okay you can't have like your mom show up and represent you that probably won't work out arrive early you don't want to miss you don't want to miss your hearing arrive early be prepared for airport-like security okay usually at the courthouse there's usually a couple security guards a metal detector you're gonna have to take out all your stuff walk through the metal detector and then get your stuff back and go into the courthouse right so don't bring anything crazy don't bring like your pocket knife don't bring your handgun don't bring it into that to the court you gotta leave it at home uh once you're in like the courtroom there's probably gonna be a lot of people in there a lot of stuff going on eventually you're probably just gonna wait for like hours eventually your case will be called uh when it is called to stand up identify yourself ask the judges or the security guard where you should stand where you should be ask them you know if you have questions just ask them they'll probably help you out uh when speaking to the judge refer to them as your honor it's not your excellency it's not your majesty it's not your highness just call them your honor uh do not interrupt other people especially not the judge never interrupt the judge okay if you listen like supreme court uh hearings you'll hear like the attorneys if they like even like open their mouth while the judge is speaking they'll like apologize profusely like oh i apologize your honor didn't mean to interrupt you all right finally tip number 11 what everyone's been waiting for is have fun i don't know what what that does not sound like crazy what have fun i'm getting sued for at that time am i supposed to have fun well you know what you only live once all right this could be a fun story after you win you're gonna go tell your friends you know have a few drinks tell your friends you know this was it was kind of a good story you know kind of crazy but kind of a good story i actually won and got off the hook and i don't have to pay anybody anything there you go all right that's pretty fun that's the number 11 have fun again this is brought to you by solo suit if you're being sued for that you can just go to associate.com we can help you respond to the lawsuit we can give you other additional resources though to help you win that's all i got for you [Music] you

Channel: SoloSuit – Win Your Debt Collection Lawsuit

Views: 35,856

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Id: afFCOkpotJo

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022