Collection Law

Practice Area

Some of the largest names in financial services routinely trust Harris Beach for their collection challenges. Our Collections team’s extensive experience in all areas of retail, consumer, commercial and subrogation collections has helped us earn a reputation for aggressively and efficiently obtaining and collecting on judgments for the creditors we represent.

With a dozen offices spanning New York state from Niagara Falls to Long Island, we have the extended reach to handle our clients’ collection matters from a regional, rather than an outsourced, platform. Collections is a key component of our Financial Restructuring, Bankruptcy, and Creditor Rights’ practice, and our knowledge of bankruptcy gives us an edge in negotiations and allows us to better advise our clients regarding their rights as creditors.

Our Collections team is comprised of attorneys, collectors, and support personnel with an average of 20 years of collection experience. The team is led by a senior-level financial executive who was previously CEO of a major upstate New York collection agency, an organization he positioned for sale through solid operations and integrity-based sales practices. Harris Beach is accredited through The National List of Attorneys, which provides attorney referrals for the credit and collections industry, and is a member of the National Association of Retail Collection Attorneys.

With our years of experience and legal resources, we know how to handle unusually complicated collection matters involving debtors who have transferred assets or have created successor entities in an attempt to avoid judgments. Our team of attorneys, collectors, legal assistants, and skip tracers utilize highly-specialized collection and litigation techniques to maximize recovery.

Harris Beach provides comprehensive collection of secured and unsecured debt, legal, and collateral recovery services to financial institutions, governmental agencies, and businesses with retail and commercial accounts. We work closely with clients and leverage the latest technology to effectively help them reduce delinquency, minimize losses, increase recovery, and improve their cash flow.

Our collections experience includes purchased debt, credit cards, student loans, foreclosures, replevins, medical and municipal debt, bankruptcies, mechanics liens, and estate claims. We also handle a broad range of unsecured debt including retail installment contracts, all matters of bank debt, promissory notes, lines of credit, overdrafts, defaulted collections, defaulted leases, and insurance premiums.

Harris Beach’s Collections department utilizes Collect Max™ software. This uniquely flexible, user-friendly collections software allows us to develop a client-specific collection process which automates and streamlines the workflow and maintains all of the information we need on any given collection file. We also ensure the confidentiality of all client information through extensive administrative, physical, and technical controls and procedures. Harris Beach has invested heavily in technology throughout the firm, as we believe technology is a key differentiator which fosters increased productivity
and efficiency.

We employ controls, such as segregation of data and least privilege access standards, to protect the confidentiality of information we receive from clients and to prevent unauthorized exchange of information from one client to another organization doing business with Harris Beach. Additionally, the firm has specific policies and standards for risk management, IT systems security, logical access control, data protection, facilities security, personnel security, threat management, IT asset management, disaster recovery and business continuity. As noted on our web site, Harris Beach is also in compliance with Safe Harbor guidelines.

Our services include:

Large and Complex Collections

Our Collections team is experienced in handling large and complex collection matters for a diverse array of institutional clients including credit unions, banks, and insurance funds.

Debtor Assets Search

Once a judgment is entered against a debtor, our collectors utilize a broad range of tools to locate assets, including subpoenas, credit reports, Collection Triggers℠, and employment searches. Harris Beach utilizes skip tracing tools through a detailed waterfall process that assists in the collections process.

Debt Collections

We utilize restraining notices, subpoenas, property executions, and income executions to garnish wages. We are particularly aggressive when debtors or third parties fail to respond to information subpoenas, and routinely seek a finding of contempt, which may ultimately lead to the noncompliant party’s arrest.

Electronic Services

Harris Beach maintains a highly sophisticated tracking system which monitors each and every file and updates account balances on a daily basis. We provide our clients with statements and monthly status reports which we customize to provide the appropriate level of detail for each file being handled.

Collection Litigation

Our attorneys have vast experience in the litigation of all facets of civil action including, but not limited to, the drafting of pleadings, motions, discovery demands and settlement documents; taking and defending depositions; and conducting trials and handling appeals. Our attorneys have considerable experience in the enforcement of civil judgments as well as in the litigation of claims against third parties who are determined to be legally responsible for the payment of the debts of others.