Can an out of state debt collection attorney sue me? This is a common question that I get asked a lot.

In general, it is unlikely.

First, an attorney has to be licensed in the state you are located in (or where the lawsuit will be filed) to sue you. You can check the states he is licensed in by looking at the letterhead. If it does not disclose other states where he is licensed you can deduce that he is only licensed in the state the letter came from. To verify this, you may want to go to your state’s bar page to see if the attorney is licensed in your state. We have links to all the states bar associations here.

Second, there is a cost factor. Most of the time it is not cost effective for an attorney to travel to show up for  a trial. There would have to be a lot of money at stake(think hundreds of thousands and up) .

There are also a couple of caveats to this too. If you incurred the debt in another state and he is licensed there he may be able to sue you where you used to live. Also, it is common now for there to be a common network of collection attorneys that refer business to each other. RCAN is a great example of this.

If you do get served you should seek the advice of an attorney immediately. There are time restrictions on how long you have to respond to a lawsuit. If you do not you face a default judgment in the case and another blemish on your credit report.

If you are located in Texas or California, give us a call.