Disclaimer and attorney advertising

Every page on this site describes the law in general terms. Whether you have a claim, against whom, and by when, turns on specific things: what kind of company contacted you, exactly what it said and when, whether the debt is a personal or a business debt, what the letters and the credit reports show, what you disputed and when, whether you have been sued, and which state's rules apply. General information cannot account for any of that.

Do not pay, sign, dispute, skip a deadline, ignore court papers, or settle anything based on something you read here. Talk to a lawyer about your own facts. If you have been sued, the answer deadline is short; see sued by a debt collector.

About the violation checker and the call log

The violation checker and the call log on this site are educational aids. The checker matches what you tick against general rules, each drawn from a statute, a regulation or a published decision. The call log flags calls that match the federal call-frequency presumptions and the hours rule. Neither tool knows your facts. They do not know whether the company is covered by the law, whether the debt is a consumer debt, whether an exception or a defense applies, or whether some earlier date controls. The true deadline in a real case can be earlier than what the checker shows.

A match is not a finding that the law was broken. The seven-calls-in-seven-days rule, for example, is a presumption that the collector can rebut, and it counts telephone calls only. The checker matches; a lawyer decides. Do not rely on either tool in place of a lawyer's review, and do not wait until the last day a deadline allows.

No attorney-client relationship until a signed retainer

Reading this site does not make you our client. Neither does running the violation checker, keeping a call log, sending us a form, an email or a text message, and neither does a free case review. An attorney-client relationship with Usher Law Group, P.C. begins only when we and you sign a written retainer agreement that says what we are handling and what it costs.

This matters for a practical reason. Until that agreement exists, we are not tracking your dates. If an answer deadline in a collection lawsuit, a limitation period, a dispute deadline or a court date is coming up, it remains yours to protect until a signed retainer says otherwise.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome

Anything this site says about published court decisions, public verdicts, agency orders or settlements describes other people's cases. The stories and the public verdicts on this site are public records drawn from the sources cited where they appear. They are not results obtained by this firm, and they are not a prediction or a promise about your case. Every case turns on its own facts, its own evidence, and the judge and jury who decide it. We publish no figures about our own results on this site.

Fees

The FDCPA requires a company found liable to pay the consumer's reasonable attorney's fees and costs (15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)). The FCRA does the same for a willful or a negligent violation (15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n(a), 1681o(a)), and Florida's FCCPA and New York's GBL 349 provide for fees as well (Fla. Stat. § 559.77(2); N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 349(h)). Under the FCCPA, a court may also award the defendant its fees if the suit lacked a justiciable issue. The TCPA has no fee-shifting clause. How our fee works in your case is confirmed in a written retainer before we begin. Court filing fees, deposition costs and other case expenses are separate from the legal fee, and the retainer explains who advances them and how they are repaid. Nothing on this site is a fee quote.

Admissions and where we practice

Mikhail Usher is admitted in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Alexander Susi is admitted in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Mitchell Bromberg is admitted in New Jersey and New York. FDCPA, FCRA and TCPA cases are brought in the federal district courts and the state courts, and our attorneys appear in the federal and state courts where they are admitted. For a matter in another court we associate with counsel admitted there or refer the matter. The firm's firm page lists each attorney's admissions.

Translation

The language selector on this site uses a machine translation service. The English text is the only version we have reviewed. Where a translation differs from the English, the English controls, and legal terms in particular may be translated imprecisely. If you need advice in another language, we speak Russian and Spanish in-house and arrange live interpretation for other languages.

Photographs

The photographs on this site are digitally created and illustrative. Every client, caller and bystander in them is a fictional person, and no image depicts an actual event, client, collector or company. Our three attorneys are shown from their own likenesses.

Links to other sites

This site links to government sources, court decisions and the firm's other practice sites. We do not control the government and court sites and are not responsible for their content. A link is not an endorsement.