My question involves court procedures for the state of: Florida
We're now on our second attorney with no end in sight to this mess; any advice would be appreciated.
My wife and I own a Florida S Corp. Although very profitable in the past, it is now doing very little business (about $1800/month) and in a good month we make about $750 in wages from the corporation. We are barely surviving and are now actually receiving food stamps.
In October 2011 a civil suit was filed against the corporation by a former vendor for $20,000.00 for unpaid invoices for merchandise we received. We did not pay the invoices because of faulty merchandise we received from this vendor. The vendor failed to honor their warranty, we refused to pay them, and they sued. Please note that the suit is against the corporation and does not name me or my wife individually.
When the suit was filed, we immediately hired an attorney who said he could "make it all go away." What he made go away was our money -- although he did perform some filings and other services, he charged us far in excess of our ability to pay (we told him we were broke when we hired him) and when things dragged on for ten months, with no end in sight, he withdrew as counsel because we could no longer pay him.
Plaintiff's counsel then filed a motion for summary judgment based on our lack of legal representation. We then banged out a deal with another attorney in order to force opposing counsel to withdraw that motion. Our new attorney is only charging us a few hundred dollars a month, but in our current state of finances that is money we really can no longer afford to spend.
What is our best course of action to end this nightmare? Our current attorney has told us that if the other side wins, we could have future wages (from any source) garnished, lose our cars, personal property, etc., so we cannot afford to have a judgment placed against us; on the other hand, we can no longer afford to pay for legal representation -- we're at the point of having to decide whether to eat or pay our attorney. Having this hanging over our heads is having a huge impact on our health, both mental and physical.
Other info: We are currently operating what's left of the business from our home. The business has some inventory, but not enough to cover a $20,000.00 judgment. We make a few hundred dollars a month from the business, and the rest goes out in bank fees, CPA fees, and other normal costs of doing business. If at all possible we would like to find a way to continue making the few hundred each month, but we are not sure what to do about that, either.
As you can tell, we are desperate. Any advice anyone can give would be appreciated.

