The Dangers in Representing Yourself in Your Debt Collection Lawsuit

I fully understand that in many debt collection lawsuits it doesn’t make a lot of sense for people to hire a lawyer.  If you are being sued by a debt buyer like Midland Funding for $1,000 it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hire a lawyer to represent you when it is likely the attorney fee will be higher.  If you are getting sued for $10,000, on the other hand, it does make sense because, at least at my office, you will only pay a fraction of that to get full representation in your lawsuit.

However, everyday I meet with people who have decided to take on the task of fighting their own battle against the junk debt buyer and then decide to bring on an attorney once they get neck-deep in the case.  In this article I want to go over some of the not-so obvious dangers that come with representing yourself with the idea of bringing an attorney on later.

#1 – Your Lawyer Will Be Bound By Your Admissions 

Each stage of a debt collection lawsuit is important.  And once you admit or deny something in a written document that has been filed with the court it is difficult to backtrack and change that answer.  For example, the Answer is the written document you must file at the beginning of the case in response to the debt buyer’s allegations.  If you admit something that isn’t true or that hasn’t been proven by the debt buyer plaintiff, you and your attorney will likely be bound by this admission down the road when the case goes to trial.

Once I had a case where a client hired me to handle the trial part of the case.  When the case went to trial the debt buyer’s attorney brought out the Answer my client had prepared on his own and walked the judge through all of the admissions my client had made.  He had admitted to things that weren’t even accurate!  This was an innocent mistake – after all he wasn’t an attorney and had never been involved in a debt collection lawsuit before.  But the thing is, I was stuck with this admissions.  There wasn’t anything I could do and it was detrimental to his case.

#2- There May Not Be Time for Appropriate Discovery

In every debt collection lawsuit in Arizona the parties are permitted to do “discovery”.  This is the process where each of the parties can send written requests for information and/or documents.  However there are certain time frames when this discovery must be complete if it is to be used at trial.  If you wait to bring a lawyer on board to your case until right prior to trial you will have missed out on the opportunity to conduct discovery and possibly obtain information or documents that could help you in winning your case.

#3 – Arizona Requires You to Make Timely Disclosure of Defenses, Witnesses, and Exhibits

In Arizona there is no trial by ambush.  Both parties are required to disclose what their claims, defenses, exhibits, possible witnesses, etc. are well before trial.  In fact, in Arizona the initial disclosures must be done forty (40) days after you file your Answer.  If you haven’t properly and timely disclosed all of the needed information on your defense your attorney may be barred from using it on your behalf at trial.

Again, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to hire a consumer lawyer and other times you simply don’t have the money to do it.  But if you can afford to hire a lawyer it is in your best interest to do it early on in the case.