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Arizona Judgment Collection
Arizona Judgment Lawyers specializes in representing judgment creditors against their debtors, with no upfront cost to you. We offer free consultations, and firmly believe that we should not be paid unless you are paid. Our fees are simply a portion of the money we collect on your behalf. No recovery. No fee.
FREE ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING
Worried your judgment lacks collectable assets? That’s ok – we will monitor your judgment debtors and provide you regular “collectability” reports. If collectable assets ever appear, we will find them – and help you take the necessary action when they do.
NO RECOVERY, NO FEE
You have already worked hard to secure a judgment entitling you to payment, so why pay more to receive what is rightfully yours? Our fees are simply a portion of the money we collect on your behalf. There is no upfront cost and we offer free consultations. No recovery, No fee.
FULL COLLECTION SERVICE
We pursue debtors to the fullest extent allowed by law in Arizona. With over a decade of experience in judgment domestication, enforcement, recovery, and collection, as well as matters concerning general creditors’ rights, we can help you reach a desirable outcome.
Arizona Office Location
Some of the Cities We Serve
Maricopa County: Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, Surprise, Avondale, Goodyear, Buckeye, Sun City, El Mirage, Queen Creek, Sun City West, Fountain Hills, Anthem, New River, Sun Lakes, Paradise Valley, Tolleson, Wickenburg, Youngtown, Guadalupe, Litchfield Park, Cave Creek, Citrus Park, Carefree, and Gila Bend.
We also serve the following areas:
Paradise Valley, Cave Creek, Carefree, Rio Verde, Sedona, Scottsdale, Tubac, Oro Valley, Fountain Hills, Catalina Foothills, Litchfield Park, Marana, Sahuarita, and Flagstaff.
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WHAT WE DO
You’ve won a judgment. Now what?
Countless Hollywood films and television courtroom dramas fade to black moments after the judge bangs his gavel to conclude a hard-fought civil trial. In reality, however, the end of litigation is just the beginning of an arduous and often frustrating collection process. Getting a judgment in the first place is exhausting enough, but it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on unless and until the debtor actually pays.
Many judgments simply lie fallow indefinitely because their owners lack the time, energy, and expertise to pursue payment. This is worse than money left on the table—it’s money left in the wallets of people who did damage to you and your business interests, whether by artlessness or artifice.
Delinquent debtors use every trick in the book to avoid paying up, and they’re aided by a confusing patchwork of debt regulations and bankruptcy laws, esoteric financial mechanisms, and clunky bureaucratic procedures. Oftentimes, they employ crafty lawyers and accountants to help them hide the monies and assets that rightfully belong to you.
This is why you need skilled representation in your corner. The collections phase of a dispute is no less adversarial than the trial phase, and walking into it without the right professionals on your side is like walking into court without an attorney. Creditors who attempt to go it alone often end up undermanned and outgunned, out of pocket and out of luck.
You need representation, and you need the right representation. Many firms in the collections industry focus on small-time work, such as vehicle repossessions, and lack both the resources and the resourcefulness to tackle hard-ball collections in the business sphere.
We have abundant experience with white collar disputes and high-stakes seven-figure commercial litigation and we bring that major-league mindset to all of our cases, big and small. Our firm is built from the ground up to flexibly accommodate the needs of all our clients and our structures and processes are engineered to facilitate fast recovery.
Moreover, if your collections problem hits an unexpected snag that takes it outside the scope of our regular operations, we have the ability to smoothly transfer the case to our sister firm, Brentwood Law Group, which is equipped for a wide range of complex litigation issues. This is a level of service that most competitors are simply unable to provide.
You’ve won a judgment. Now you need it enforced. It’s time to call in the cavalry.
Judgment Collection Process
You will benefit from the right lawyers to help you collect your judgment.
Assets Investigation
The key to this process starts with diligent investigation and timing. Our lawyers and investigators use resources and long-standing relationships within the financial community to locate assets, including well-hidden ones. This is always done within legal parameters, but also done with little to no notification to the judgment debtor to keep them from transferring the assets before we can seize or garnish.
Garnishment & Seizing Money
After we locate bank accounts and other assets, we use the legal process of garnishment and execution to seize money and valuables to get you paid. When we locate employment, we aggressively file garnishments to seize wages and other income belonging to your judgment debtors. Beyond this, we file, update, and monitor judgment liens to catch and foreclose property owned by your debtors.
More Subpoenas to find hidden assets
Along with these steps, we send subpoenas for information and documents to dig up the assets your debtors are hiding. Our legal team is experienced in processing garnishments, executions, charging orders, supplemental proceedings, subpoenas, fraudulent transfer actions, replevins, foreclosures, receiverships, and other legal avenues.
Because your judgment is unique, you will benefit from an experienced law firm creating and diligently executing on a judgment recovery plan that is best for you.
Who We Are
Our attorneys studied at some of the world’s most prestigious universities; each holds a J.D. from one of the top law schools in America. Yet what distinguishes our firm isn’t the degrees on the wall, but the trophies.
Too many lawyers have their heads in the clouds, focusing on academic trivialities and antiquated formalities rather than on winning the best outcomes for their clients. Our attorneys have sharpened their skills through years of aggressive practice in the trenches of the Arizona legal system.
We emphasize efficiency, and we seek and cultivate a sense of entrepreneurialism in our attorneys. We understand the business world, and we respect that the most important bottom line isn’t the signature line on your checks, it’s the profits on your balance sheet.
Judgment Collection Attorney – Best in Arizona
Stephen Brower is the founder of Arizona Judgment Lawyers. He manages a team of best of class lawyers to design and implement judgment collection strategies best suited for you. With his highly-intelligent and effective legal team, Mr. Brower understands that judgment enforcement is an exercise in out maneuvering and out smarting your debtors. He obtained his undergraduate degree with honors from Arizona State University and then excelled at and obtained his juris doctorate from UCLA School of Law in 2006.
Questions about Judgment Collection?
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DOMESTICATING A JUDGMENT IN ARIZONA
a common Judgment Domestication scenario
Plaintiff obtains a judgment, and at some point either before the judgment enforcement begins (or sometimes during) the defendant/judgment debtor picks up and leaves the state, likely rendering judgment collection almost impossible in the state where the judgment was issued.
Unfortunately for creditors, judgment enforcement laws are all different depending on the state, and you cannot enforce any judgment against a debtor in Arizona unless it is an Arizona judgment. Fortunately for creditors, the Arizona state legislature has enacted the Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Act, which provides a process by which an out of state creditor can “move” (or “domesticate”) their out of state judgment to Arizona, and start enforcing here. This sometimes called the Sister State Judgment process. The judgment must be domesticated (or “Sister-Stated”) to the courthouse local to where the debtor resides- meaning the debtor must be tracked down, and the domestication papers filed in the Debtors local County Court.
The U.S. Constitution requires that States recognize the judgments of other states, so once the domestication process is started, there are very few defenses that the debtor has to prevent the entry of the sister state judgment. Once the domestication process is completed, the creditor will then have a Sister-State-Judgment- which will be a legitimate and enforceable Arizona judgment.
Should I Domesticate my Judgment to Arizona?
Usually yes, but sometimes no. Domesticating a judgment is relatively cheap but the economics of the situation still need to be considered. If a judgment is uncollectable due to a lack of assets, etc., it may not be worth any money at all to domesticate. However, if the debtor has assets of any kind, it may be a good idea to domesticate, allowing a creditor to place liens on debtor property and possibly begin other collection proceedings like wage garnishment.
Another factor to consider in whether or not to domesticate a judgment is that by doing so will alert the judgment debtor that a creditor is on the hunt. The debtor might begin taking evasive actions like purchasing property in family members’ names or other transferring of property out of the debtor’s name, making collecting more difficult. On the other hand, a creditor who waits to domesticate runs the risk that later creditors might get to the debtors assets first–the general rule of enforcing on debtor assets is “first come, first served”- so if a creditor down the road gets a lien on the debtors house before you do because you decided to wait to domesticate, even if their debt came later, your debt is forever behind theirs in line on that particular asset.
The decision of whether to domesticate and then what to do once the judgment is domesticated is not always easy. If you simply call us at Arizona Judgment Law, we will talk to you about your domestication situation and your debtor, and give you our best and honest opinion on what you should do- and won’t charge you anything for it.
Should you choose to use our firm to domesticate your judgment to Arizona, we charge one FLAT FEE – (no hidden charges or coming back later for additional money) – and for that we perform the following services:
- Skip trace your debtor anywhere in Arizona;
- File the proper papers and documents in the appropriate Court (anywhere in AZ);
- Serve the Debtor anywhere in AZ (we have process servers that can go anywhere in the State)
- Put down a real estate lien on any property in the County where the Debtor lives; and
- File a personal property lien with the AZ Secretary of State, which reaches other personal property of the debtor.
We do all for one very reasonable flat fee. Of course, if you would like to pursue additional collection efforts we are happy to help and can speak to you about those options.