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What if you need to look at the current and historical financial records related to your judgment debtor (person or company), or a third-party witness that knows about their assets; to attempt to discover where, or more about, where your debtor's business/assets/income currently are, or where they are now? Such discovery attempts must get done with subpoenas served onto the parties; including document production requests, with a due date of the already court scheduled date of the debtor exam hearing. In California, debtor examinations are called ORAPs. My articles are my opinions and are not, a legal opinion. I am a judgment recovery expert, and not a lawyer. If you ever want a strategy to use or legal advice, please retain a lawyer. Subpoenaed requests for the production of documents usually are for a bunch of accounting-type documents. (As of 2013, paper is still in use for lots of finance-related documents.) After a party gets served with the subpoena, consider the situation when they or their attorney; tells you to show up at their place prior to the upcoming examination hearing, and sort through their (e.g., 6) banker-sized boxes of files yourself; and make your copies prior to the date of the exam hearing. They may also say something similar to: "I am not going to do any more than supply the records for you in our office for you to make copies, and that is all we need to do. You cannot make us take time and copy the files and sort them as asked for in your subpoena". This kind of tactic is known as paper dumping, a strategy sometimes used by attorneys representing debtors. In response to a subpoenaed request for the production of documents, they provide way too many unsorted documents. In post-judgment proceedings, a witness or judgment debtor is required to do only the absolute minimum to comply; to bypass a potential contempt ruling, and is under no obligation to make anything easy on their creditor. I believe there's not any recourse to such a paper dumping strategy by a judgment debtor or some 3rd-party witness; because post-judgment, it is a document production requests for the hearing. In a pre-judgment lawsuit circumstance, conventional discovery requests would probably require the parties to produce documents to the deposition officer. Often, it is a good idea to ask for a bit more than you need, as you may learn more than if you asked for just the minimum. Note that when that third-party witness is a bank or a other entity, laws usually authorizes them to get reimbursed for their fees and/or costs, which can add up to a lot if you ask for a lot. Instead of requesting all documents for every possible available asset or transferred asset during the last five years, perhaps (for example) ask for copies of all checks or other compensation paid to the judgment debtor between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2011, for any amount above $1,000. Also specific, another example might be for "all 2012 real estate transaction records for real estate where the purchase price was above $350,000". If the creditor asks for very specific information, they'll get either a fast response or a quick objection. If the creditor requests everything and the kitchen sink, then that judgment owner should expect no response or some papers in boxes or bags. With boxed documents circumstances, like what was discussed above, consider taking advantage of their invitation, and copy everything possible. After that, look over those papers when convenient. Perhaps you may actually discover a few useful leads to possible assets. A portable scanner such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 and a laptop, creates a fine copying solution; and your notebook computer would allow you to also copy discs, etc. A wand notebook computer can be useful to copy documents which cannot be copied by a conventional scanner. Usually, the creditor needs to arrange to copy, or pay to copy any subpoenaed document requests. The first option is to visit their location and copy their documents, the other option is to copy (or pay to have copied) everything at the examination hearing. When your judgment debtor or a third-party witness has to pay their attorney to appear at that examination hearing, your second option would very expensive for that party. Mark Shapiro of: http://www.JudgmentBuy.com - Your easiest and fastest free way to find the best expert to buy or recover your judgment.
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Specific Document requests, document production requests, paper dumps,
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