As we all know real estate is rather unpredictable these days...up....down....here....there...where ever. That is why we started to de-emphasize it several years ago, and expand into different areas of practice.

Litigation on the other hand is booming with the economy as bad as it is....particularly in the area of contract collections. Seems there is no end to people breaching and defaulting on obligations.

However, I ran into an amusing story yesterday. I talked to a friend that works part time for a collection agency. They seem to be having difficulty too. They have no shortage of people to go after. However, these people may have nothing to get.

While the collection agencies are pretty much limited to making annoying telephone calls and writing threatening letters, they generally do not have the ability to litigate the claim without a lawyer on staff. "Sixty Minutes" just did an item on their collection practices last weekend.

In Connecticut the legal profession has the ability to attach or garnish property/funds at the outset of litigation, and assure that there is something to pay the claim when judgment enters. The most effective prejudgment remedy seems to be garnishment of the defendant's accounts receivable held by its clients. The defendant cannot dissipate the funds because it has not yet received them. If the defendant has any ability to pay the claim it usually will do so to avoid having its clients notified by a marshal to freeze the receivables.