Case Example

About fifteen years ago, we had a client who was trying to collect a $1 million judgment from a former business partner we’ll call Jake. Wisely, Jake was staying out of sight to avoid our subpoena. We wanted to bring him into court for a debtor’s examination to make him tell us what he owned. We knew he had substantial assets, but we couldn’t find him or any of his property. A search of all of the county real estate records in Los Angeles—where he lived—and each surrounding county showed nothing. Since there was a lot of money involved, we paid thousands of dollars to search every county in California, Nevada, Washington, and Oregon. Still nothing.

One day, after five or six years of basically futile efforts, we received a call from a former secretary who used to work in our office. She had left the firm to open an art gallery in Vail, Colorado. "Are you still looking for that Jake guy?" she asked. "I just saw him on the ski slopes." That was a great tip. We checked the county records and found a house in his name that he had purchased for $3.6 million in cash. We immediately entered our judgment in Colorado and filed a lien on the property. Jake settled quickly and our client ended up with about $2.7 million, covering the judgment, interest, and court costs. Jake had figured we would never find the property, and without our lucky break, he would have been right.