Feb 27, 2019
Wilson Cole, President of Adams, Evens, & Ross (AER) and Samantha Cole, in-house counsel for AER, explain the importance of never telling a client you have voided their contract. First of all, if a staffing agency is turning over a case for collections they should always turn over all information they have related to the case (good, bad, or indifferent) at the onset. Failure to do so can lead to the collections firm being ambushed and ultimately sink the chances of collecting on the debt. Lately AER has encountered an uptick in the number of cases where clients have for whatever reason failed to include a key piece of “bad” information initially or at all (until it was too late). Wilson has begun asking clients “is there any documentation or information that is not going to help your case?” in an effort to get out in front of such situations. One particular example of “bad” information that is regularly left out by clients is that the contract between the staffing agency and the client was voided. This information is particularly harmful because voiding a contract generally means that the contract never existed. Sam points out that this is different from terminating (or cancelling) a contract, which means that the contract does not exist after a certain point in time but up until that point in time it does exist (and is valid). She also notes that if there are any “smoking guns” for cases that come across her desk, the faster they are identified the better, because the odds of collecting from a debtor are greater than the odds of collecting from a debtor’s attorney. Likewise, the odds of recovering from a blindside from a debtor are greater than the odds of recovering from a blindside from a debtor’s attorney. To follow up with Samantha, you can email her at . Or if you have a collections issue that you want AER to take a look at, feel free to call 800-452-5287, extension 6578, or you can email .