Collection law firms: register-checked public records

Often, yes. A collection law firm can file a lawsuit directly, as the creditor’s lawyer, in the creditor’s name, so any letter that threatens suit should be taken seriously and answered within the stated deadline. You keep every right the FDCPA gives you, including the right to demand written validation of the debt, and attorney conduct rules apply to the firm on top of debt collection law.

Not always. Texas Finance Code Section 392.001(7) excludes from the bond rule "an attorney collecting a debt as an attorney on behalf of and in the name of a client", unless the attorney has nonattorney employees who regularly solicit debts for collection or regularly contact debtors. Every firm in this page’s Texas list holds an active Texas third-party debt collector bond on the Secretary of State register, checked against that register the same way as an agency’s; firms whose bond has ended are listed separately below.

Not always, and this matters when checking a firm. In New York City, attorneys collecting as part of a law practice can be exempt from the Debt Collection Agency license, so a law firm absent from the city register may be operating legitimately, which is not true of an ordinary collection agency. The New York firms listed on this page hold the city license, which is what lets their history be verified against the public record; a firm that relies on the exemption simply cannot be verified this way and is not listed, which says nothing bad about it.

Accuracy. A law firm that regularly collects consumer debts is a debt collector under the federal FDCPA (settled by the US Supreme Court in Heintz v. Jenkins, 1995), but calling a law practice a collection agency would be wrong, and the practical difference, that a firm can file suit directly, is exactly what a consumer needs to know first.