Indiana Court of Appeals Judge John Baker, who will serve on the Indiana Supreme Court’s task force, told the Star that he is worried that “people might perceive they aren’t being treated fairly” the way debt collection cases are proceeding through the small claims courts.

Before I started my law practice where I often represent debtors, I worked as a collection attorney for two law firms that had debt collection cases in Marion County.  I routinely attended court in Marion County for one law office in the early 2000′s.  Later in the decade, I attended court at one of the small claims courts in the City-County building in Marion County.

When I went to court, I always made it clear that I was an attorney for the Plaintiff and always gave the “mini-Miranda” warning advising debtors that I am a debt collector and that any information they told me would be used for to collect the debt.  I also made sure to give debtors a card with my law firm’s file number so that debtors could make sure their payments were properly credited.

I also attended court in Cook County, Illinois in the First District (Daley Center) on the eleventh floor where every collection case was called before the judge.  It wasn’t unusual for court to start at 9:30 a.m. and everyone (20-30 debtors) would have had their case called at least once by 10:30 a.m.

Indiana’s courts routinely handle small claims cases by informal hallway hearings.  Illinois’ courts usually called cases before a judge to ascertain an admission or a denial.

The solution might be to have the judge call the cases before the court to determine if there are disputes or if debtors wish to admit the debt and set up payment plans.  In Cook County, the judges usually had a standard statement they made to debtors at the beginning of court explaining the process to save time.  Debtors who requested trial dates could be assigned a date at the “admit or deny” phase of the hearing.  Debtors who agreed to owing debts could set up payment plans before the judge.  Information, such as debtor addresses, could be verified for accuracy.

It might be worthwhile for the task force to take a field trip to the Daley Center’s 11th Floor to observe how Chicago’s high-volume courts handle their small claims cases.  Cook County’s Sixth District in Markham handles cases the same way, so if the task force wanted free parking, they could go to that court instead.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with small claims procedures in Marion County because it may signal changes to come statewide as many debt collection cases are handled as “hallway hearings” in Indiana.

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Technorati Tags: debt collection, Indiana Supreme Court, Indianapolis, Marion County

Every so often, someone will try to skip this duty for whatever reason. If many people did this, the system would break down.

Do not do skip jury in Lake County, Indiana, or anywhere else for that matter.

Above the Law reports that a Lake Superior Court judge recently punished a man who failed to return to jury duty after lunch by making him carry a sign that read “I failed to appear for jury duty.”

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Technorati Tags: courts, Indiana, jury duty

Video: I-69, Are We There Yet.

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Technorati Tags: Evansville, I-69, Indiana Toll Road lease, interstate, Mitch Daniels, southwest Indiana

The interaction between technology and law and the uncertainties the legislative process can create should be taken into consideration by cloud computing users.

Legislators are rushing to keep up with ever changing technology, and sometimes the effect is the introduction of sweeping legislation that could impact cloud computing and other data storage strategies, i.e. SOPA and PIPA.

I’m in favor of copyright and intellectual property protections, but worry about the chilling effects of SOPA and PIPA in relation to cloud based computing platforms when there is the potential innocent users could lose data stored on targeted servers during enforcement actions.

The recent seizure of MegaUpload and its servers used by 180 million registered users by the feds is a clear indication that users of cloud-based technologies must conduct due diligence to ensure that their providers are keeping up to date with changes in the legal arena, especially when those servers are available for anyone to use and potentially “contaminate” with content that could lead to an intellectual property action and seizure of all data — legitimate and illegitimate.

On a side note, MegaUpload shows the feds have the power to order complete site shutdowns and seizures even without SOPA and PIPA.

Maybe the solution for business owners is to implement private cloud-based technologies?

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Technorati Tags: cloud computing, copyright, intellectual property, PIPA, SOPA