Legal Question in Administrative Law in West Virginia

Re: Disputed balance due for insurance policy

Hello. I am an attorney in LOUISIANA. Your question was referred to me and I would like for you to receive a prompt and courteous response.

1) First of all, I am no more an attorney in your state than are you, and I imagine that giving legal advice without a license is a crime in WV as in LA. With that in mind, I note the following common-sense advice to head you in the right direction:

2) Categorization of your question directs you to a specific attorney. Your question is categorized as "administrative law" and even without licensing in WV, I can see that this is not correct. Your issue is one of "debt collection" which may also be called "consumer law" or "debtor-creditor law". There are federal and state laws governing debt collection and communications with debtors (you). You may say that you cannot afford an attorney, but in fact, when viewing facts concerning a debt that large, with the possible addition of charges on that amount for legal or judicial interest and/or contractual interest, court costs, attorney's fees, coupled with issues of recordation in judicial records and on your credit report, seizure of your property and many other issues, YOU CANNOT AFFORD N-O-T TO SEE AN ATTORNEY.

3) I have worked as a legal assistant and secretary for a firm handling collections and as a judicial clerk in a local court with jurisdiction over collection cases and can tell you from what I have seen, all be it a generalization, collection attorneys tend to be aggressive and insensitive (as they have heard every excuse in the book). They may handle large numbers of cases, mostly with the use of legal assistants or paralegals and have tremendous time constraints. They may be goal-oriented robots. They tend to be extremely goal-oriented (tunnel vision) and may practice law "by the numbers" and therefore not be concerned whether a violation of law and/or error was made in one particular case, and are not going to respond to you. They will proceed to judgment, record the judgment, and then begin post-judgment collection proceedings while you are mulling things over.

You need to look for an attorney who handles consumer matters, or a competent longtime practitioner who knows who you might see or is familiar with the law enough to help you.

AT A MINIMUM, I WOULD PAY FOR A CONSULTATION WITH A COMPETENT ATTORNEY SO THAT I CAN FULLY UNDERSTAND WHAT IS AT STAKE.

I would not want to get your hopes up, but mistakes can be made by creditors and by lawyers which may entitle YOU to damage. Without counsel, you would probably be unaware of this.

Good luck to you and please consider heeding this advice.