Legal Question in Business Law in New Jersey

My lawyer is not paying their debt!

My father was an attoryney and died. Before his death, for about 3 years he took on a partner, so it was a two man law firm. Upon his death, the other lawyer took over his firm and another business, and agreed to pay $3000 a month to my mother for 20 years. He has paid for two years, but is now missing about 25% of the payments! The origianl contract states that he is not ''Personally Liable'' for the debt, but his law firm is. So the question is, what are the consequences of declaring bankruptcy for an attorney? Can he duck this debt by just declaring his firm bankrupt? It seems that this can't be the case, because lawyers would be going bankrupt all the time. Is a lawyer responsible for the debts of their firm? Can they just close a firm and then re-open another one? If the firm is responsible, how does that effect the interests of the owners of a firm if they are lawyers?


Asked on 1/10/09, 5:28 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Tina Amodeo Law Office of Tina Nielsen Amodeo, LLC

Re: My lawyer is not paying their debt!

This question is way too complext to answer without you meeting with an attorney to review it and give you proper answers based upon all the information that you have. That being said, you can sue the law firm for the money. If the attorney is not "personally liable" for the debt, it means you can only go after the firm's assets to obtain payment. You're going to have to hire an attorney for this one.

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Answered on 1/11/09, 6:05 pm


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