Their day in court
December 22, 2008
Every Wednesday at noon, debt collection lawyers take their seats behind a thick wooden table in a downtown Baltimore courtroom for a ritual they call the “rocket docket.”
It’s one way officials at the city District Court try to unclog a backlog of consumer debt lawsuits, including thousands filed by hospitals over unpaid bills.
Lawyers call up debtors one at a time to work out payment plans in rapid, on-the-spot settlements. Other days, lawyers haggle with debtors in the courthouse hallways. When cases go to judges, hospitals typically win after hearings that last a few minutes or less.
Nearly one-third of the 132,000 lawsuits that Maryland hospitals have filed against patients in the past five years over unpaid bills have been filed in the city District Court, which serves an area where many debtors are “living on the margins,” as University of Maryland law professor and former Legal Aid lawyer Michael Millemann puts it.
Read Article: Baltimore Sun
Posted By: Phoenix DUI Attorney
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