Eric Berman, P.C.

Eric Berman, P.C. is a group of attorneys specializing in bankruptcy law, consolidating debt and legal services across the country.   

On July 22,2009 New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed suit against Berman, 34 other law firms and two debt collectors for failure to properly notify consumers of pending legal action regarding debt collection.  

All of the companies named in the suit employed American Legal Process to notify New York consumers that they were being sued for failure to repay a debt.  American Legal Process did not follow proper protocol when serving the consumers.  This caused thousands of default judgments to be entered against New York consumers. None of those who had default judgments against them had a chance to respond or defend themselves against the charges. 

ALP was hired as a legal process server by high-volume debt collection law firms to serve summons or complaints notifying consumers that they are being sued and that they must respond. ALP did not notify them correctly thereby denying them the opportunity to respond in court or in writing.  For many New Yorkers the first inkling they had they were in any kind of trouble was when their bank accounts were frozen or their wages were garnished. According to the suit American Legal Process falsified sworn affidavits of service. The false affidavits of service were used to obtain defaults against the consumer. The law firms and debt collectors filed more than 100,000 suits across the state of New York. 

In most states the process server must be an impartial third party. Once the notice has been delivered the process server is expected to file an affidavit of service with the court verifying that the named defendant has been served properly and that in turn is added to the case file.  In the New York case, American Legal Process neglected their duties and falsified documents repeatedly. By seeking default judgments the law firms made use of the falsified documents that claimed the defendants had been given proper notice.  The case is meant to correct the large number of improperly obtained default judgments.  

The case seeks to: 

  Require the firms involved to inform New York State court system of each action in which they used ALP to serve legal process and in which cases a default judgment was granted. 

Notify all parties in those actions of the existence of the lawsuit and their right to be heard. 

Notify the court of amount of any default judgments taken in any relevant actions as well as whether the debtor paid any amount to satisfy the default judgment.

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