Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Michigan

Re: Cost of Attorney for Credit Card Debt

I assist consumers with both bankruptcy and other debt relief options. I would be happy to give you a free consultation to review your options and discuss fees which I do not publish on the internet. Everyone's sitiuation is unique.

You can contact me at 248.679.1552.

Rochelle Guznack

Re: Cost of Attorney for Credit Card Debt

I suggest you immediately enroll in credit counseling which will take over and negotiate for you all credit accounts that are not currently in collection. I recommend Greenpath, which has several locations in Michigan. It is worth their $50/month fee to have them negotiate with your creditors for reduced payments and interest rates.

For the accounts that are already in oollection, generally they are only willing to negotiate if you can make a lump sum payment up front, and they will ask you to sign an agreement outlining your new payment plan. And once there are lawyers involved, they will want lawyer fees, etc., and will likely sue you should you continue to ignore them and/or not make payments.

If you were to hire a lawyer to handle making the telephone calls for either the collection accounts, or all of the accounts, the amount charged depends on the amount of time expended - it's hard to estimate up front, as it's a lot of phone calls, etc.

Definitely contact Greenpath immediately - they will greatly reduce the payments on any accounts not currently in collections, which will save you money each month.

If you are interested in hiring an attorney, please feel free to contact me and I will help you.

Thanks and good luck.

Re: Cost of Attorney for Credit Card Debt

That's a LOT of debt.

I would hope that $200K of school debt bought you a pretty decent set of thinking tools. Apply them first to yourself.

Instead of spending money on attorneys or potentially risky credit counseling services, you might do well to spend a few hundred dollars with an accountant and buy a few books on how to get out of debt. Why?

Because you need to get a handle on your finances. An accountant can help you with interest rates, debt and cash flow issues.

Quicken and Nolo both publish money management tools and any spreadsheet program will allow you to make projections out for a few years to see what mix of payback options will work best for you.

THEN, once you know what you've got, you can negotiate with each creditor and instead of using bankruptcy as your weak position, use it as your strength.

They can't squeeze blood from a stone, and you may not be allocating your debt payments effectively yet. When you correspond with them, do it in writing.