Judgement and Garnishment

[Kim v]

My question involves judgment recovery in the State of: Wisconsin.

Long story very short. I've been served, had a judgement and then garnished on two credit card debts on two separate occasions this summer. Both came from the same law firm.

Yesterday I received a letter in the US mail that states there was another judgement made against me on 11/15/10 and that they will garnish me again. This came from the same law firm as the previous two garnishments. This is one of my husband's debts.

First, I was never served nor made aware of the court date on 11/15/10. I immediately called the Clerk of Courts and I was told they could have served my Lawyer (I use that term loosely as I rarely utilize him and haven't paid him for any services in months). She basically said if they served my attorney and HE didn't bother to notify us, then too bad. I don't understand why they would have served my attorney this time and not me. I'm at the same residence, nothing has changed.

I whipped out a letter to the judge, the law firm for the debt and my attorney yesterday and sent it registered mail. My hope is to get the case reopened so I can be present to discuss my case. I'm not contesting the debt, just can't get thru another garnishment. This will put us into foreclosure on our house. Winter is a bad time with my husband's income.

The law firm that has been garnishing me since June is the only debtor that hasn't been willing to talk or work with us. We've complied with providing financial info to them (thru our lawyer), we've made counter-offers to their offers (again thru our lawyer because they won't talk to us because "we hired a lawyer"). They just keep suing us. They've overcharged me...reimbursed me....now here we go again. Obviously they found the piggy bank in the family and won't let go!

Bottom line-is there any hope that I can get this reopened or at least put on hold until I can get papers from my attorney that say we are no longer working with him so I can work with the law firm? Was obtaining this judgement without my knowledge even legal? If they did serve my lawyer (not sure why that would have happened when they've been serving ME this summer) and my lawyer dropped the ball, is that "too bad" like the clerk of courts said? Do I have any rights or protection or do I have to lose my house, get a divorce and go bankrupt before anyone will listen? We're tryng really hard to just pay this stuff off and move on.

I was going to give each of the recipients of my letter to mid week next week to get answers. I'm not even sure what to do if they DON'T answer.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Was your attorney served or not? If not, your lawyer should get on the issue and try to have the default set aside. If so and your lawyer neither informed you of the status of the case nor took other appropriate action, you can discuss with your lawyer whether it remains possible to try to attack the default and, if not, what he might do to compensate you for his neglect of your case. If your lawyer received documents after you terminated his services and it wasn't clear from those documents that they weren't simply courtesy copies, you can discuss your possible remedies and what your lawyer might charge to represent you further.