Recovering Tough Judgments

I am not a lawyer, I am a judgment referral specialist (Judgment Broker). Most judgment recovery courses and seasoned judgment enforcers advise people to screen judgment debtors carefully, and never take assignment of any judgment unless the debtor has obvious assets showing. (For example - jobs, bank accounts, businesses, or real estate.)

The problem with such good advice, is that more than 95% of judgment debtors are not doing very well, and do not have obvious assets showing. Most judgments are difficult, yet every debtor has to eat, and many have (or can get) some kind of income or assets that can be used to at least partially satisfy the judgment. The average judgment is tough until you dig down and find the income or asset.

Judgment Brokers, judgment listing services, and suppliers of judgment leads, are sometimes held to an impossible standard, and some people assert they list mostly tough judgments. Most listings of judgment leads range from easy to tough. Some judgment leads are free unless they pan out, which makes sense when judgments are not perfect.

One problem with all judgment lists are that the easy judgments get taken very quickly, giving an incorrect assumption that they list only difficult judgments. Because most judgments are crummy, most judgment lists include difficult judgments. A quality judgment broker attempts to separate difficult judgments, but judgment classification is more art than science.

Ten years ago, many judgment recovery specialists did quite well rejecting all but the easiest of judgments. Now, any judgment recovery specialist that only recovers easy judgments, will experience long dry spells between finding more "great" judgments.

Now, judgment recovery specialists must begin looking at average judgments to recover, while waiting to find a good judgment. While the judgment debtor's situation is very important, the location of the judgment debtor is also important. Gone are the days where one could easily recover a judgment by remote control, using only the post office.

Judgments found on "difficult" lists are not impossible, but they are not easy. Many judgments on difficult lists, get recovered or partially recovered. Judgments may go on difficult lists when the debtor's full situation is not known, or when too many judgment enforcers refuse to even look at the judgment situation, or when a previous enforcer tried to enforce the judgment by remote control.

If you are local to the judgment debtor, you should be open to considering difficult judgments. As long as you avoid wasting time and money on poor judgment debtors, there is nothing wrong with difficult judgments as long-term investments.

By working local judgments, you might discover by a drive-by, or by chatting with neighbors, how the judgment debtor makes their living, and you might find out when they can be served. You might discover they live with a relative, who can be served to answer questions about the debtor's assets.

You never know for sure what will work, the key is to try all the cheap and easy ways first with judgment debtors that are close to you. If you begin to recover a difficult judgment, you are not obligated to keep it. You can return the judgment to the Original Judgment Creditor. You can also just check the judgment debtor's situation every year, you may find an asset of theirs.

Slam-dunk judgments are what all judgment recovery specialists want. However, most easy judgments are never seen, because they are often previously satisfied. As long as you do not waste time or money on permanently judgment-proof debtors, you will increase your chances of making more money by recovering more judgments that are local to you.

The average charge to recover small (under 10K) judgments is about 50 percent. It might be fair to charge a bit more on difficult judgments.


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Mark D. Shapiro - Judgment Referral Expert - good for all judgment owners, Judgment Enforcers and contingency collection lawyers: http://www.JudgmentBuy.com - where Judgments go to get Purchased or Enforced!