Judgment Enforcement

Obtaining a Judgment does not necessarily mean the litigation battle is over. The goal of a lawsuit is not obtaining a piece of paper called a Judgment after all; it is about obtaining payment. Under our common law legal system, a judgment debtor is under no legal compulsion to pay a money Judgment. He is fully within his rights to lay low and do nothing after he loses a case. The law places the burden of enforcing a Judgment squarely on the winner, the judgment creditor. Not surprisingly, obtaining “satisfaction” of a Judgment from a non-cooperative judgment debtor can be more difficult than winning the lawsuit. Thankfully, the law provides judgment creditors with an array of judgment enforcement tools and methods. The key is employing these techniques in a solid and well-tailored judgment enforcement plan to collect the debt and obtain “satisfaction.”

Bernard D’Orazio & Associates, P.C., provides its clients with aggressive, resourceful, and persistent representation collecting and enforcing Judgments. For more than two decades, we have successfully represented judgment enforcement matters from clients, lawyers, and law firms throughout the United States and from other countries.

We believe the key to successful judgment enforcement is solid research. We comb public records and use our access to on-line databases to obtain critical information about judgment debtors and their business, assets, and financial affairs. We retain outside investigators where necessary as well.

Judgment enforcement proceedings and techniques can include the following steps:

• Asset searches and public record research;
• Post-judgment litigation and proceedings, including obtaining discovery from judgment debtors, banks, and other parties, motions and other applications seeking “turnover” or installment payment orders, receivership applications, wage garnishments, and contempt of court applications;
• Actions to set aside fraudulent conveyances of real property and fraudulent transfers of money and other personal property, actions to impose liability on parties based on “de facto merger” and other successor liability claims, and actions to "pierce the corporate veil" and impose personal liability upon company insiders who have mismanaged their businesses and abused the corporate form; and
• Executing on and selling real and personal property owned by judgment debtors.

For more information, please contact us to schedule an appointment or for a no-obligation review of your case.

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