Legal Question in Business Law in New Jersey

legal fees

I am a medical billing company owner who is in litigation with a physician group who breached our contract and refuses to pay us money owed to us. We had no choice but to retain a laywer (who could not help us in the long run); now we must take our former clients to small claims court. Are we able to recover our lawyer fees in our lawsuit (we paid $750) being that they were the ones who breached our contract and we had no choice but to hire an attorney because we were threatened by their lawyer if we had any contact with them they would sue us for harrassment even though we just want the money owed to us? Can we recover our attorneys fees in small claims court?


Asked on 7/20/07, 7:21 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Corbett Corbett Law Firm LLC

Re: legal fees

Absent a contract term that gives you the right to collect attorney fees in addition to your damages, you are unlikely to get the judge to award fees. You should claim them, but don't expect to win on the issue.

If you would like me to review your contract to help avoid the problem in the future, contact me. Much can be done to prevent losses to deadbeat clients by including appropriate contract terms. Additionally, if your contract were to be drafted properly, the threat of the defaulting customer having to pay court costs and attorney fees is powerful leverage to get payment.

If I can be of help to you, call or email. If you remind me that the contact was through Lawguru, the first consultation will be free.

See also: http://info.corbettlaw.net/lawguru.htm

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Answered on 7/21/07, 1:56 pm


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