Construction Litigation Attorney Collects Bad Debt

Sometimes even when you have done everything right, your customer “finds” a “reason” not to pay you. That happened to one of our clients when it delivered $42,000.00 of concrete to a job site. The customer admitted owing twenty grand. Yet, he refused to pay anything unless our client walked away from the remaining $22,000.00 balance. Months passed without payment. Unwilling to give up what was rightfully his, the client called the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC and we commenced construction litigation.

We promptly sued. The customer counter-claimed seeking $70,000.00 from our client. After the parties did discovery, we convinced the other attorney to agree to non-binding mediation. After almost five hours of mediation, the customer relented, agreeing to pay our client all of the principal and a healthy amount of interest and gave up its $70,000.00 counterclaim.

Final score: Our client — $50,000.00, Debtor — Zippo!