Forum Shopping By Debt Collection Attorneys: Possible Motivations, Implications For Consumers

Notre Dame Law School Clinical Professor Of Law Judith Fox writes:

• In an email to the Small Claims Task Force, a committee appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to investigate allegations of abuse in the Marion County Small Claims Court, an Indiana attorney claimed that collection attorneys were forum shopping in Indiana small claims court.
  
  In its subsequent report, the task force confirmed that some forum shopping is occurring in Marion County Small claims courts.
  
  This study takes that allegation a step further and looks beyond the small claims courts of Marion County to examine the forum shopping practices of collection attorneys throughout Indiana. The evidence suggests that collection firms do forum shop between courts in individual judicial districts.
  
  This article takes a closer look at forum shopping by exploring the possible motivations for the forum shopping and its implications for consumers.

For more, see How Forum Determines Substance in Judicial Debt Collection.