Unpaid Legal Fee Recovery
Recovering aged accounts receivable for law firms, solo practitioners, and boutique litigation practices without a litigation retainer or partner hours.
Practice areasEvery client deserves exceptional representation. Every attorney deserves to be paid accordingly.
NJM Recovery & Consulting recovers aged fee balances of $5,000 or more for law firms, without a litigation retainer and without a year in court. We work under your firm, which stays counsel of record and approves every figure in writing. The money goes straight into your firm’s account, and our success fee applies only to funds that clear.
Call Neil J. Murphy directly: 201-500-8479
Own a business with unpaid commercial invoices? See how we recover B2B invoices.
When solvent debtors, enterprise clients, or former clients walk away from undisputed invoices, a collection agency has no court file behind its letters, and litigation takes a year and costs more than the balance. NJM works a fixed pre-service resolution window under your counsel, designed to get you paid before the complaint is ever served.
Recovering aged accounts receivable for law firms, solo practitioners, and boutique litigation practices without a litigation retainer or partner hours.
Practice areasResolving unpaid commercial invoices and broken service contracts for business owners, worked under the owner’s own attorney.
Commercial invoicesTurning unpaid counsel-fee awards and balances left open after a final decree into cleared funds in your firm’s account.
Matrimonial and family lawMost firms carry fee balances they have quietly stopped counting. Chasing them has never been worth a partner's time, and filing suit means a year of litigation over a receivable the firm had already given up on.
There is a point between those two options that most firms never use. Your firm files a verified complaint on the fee claim and holds service. A case that has been filed but not yet served is real, and the other side knows it. We work inside that window, presenting only the figure your firm has authorized in writing, while your firm remains counsel of record. Funds clear directly into your firm’s Attorney Business Account. If the window closes without payment, your firm serves and proceeds with nothing conceded.
Neil J. Murphy
Founder, NJM Recovery & Consulting Services LLC
Four stages. Your firm holds the case, the authorization, and the money at every one of them.
Every practice below starts from the same problem: an unpaid legal bill. What differs is who owes it and why it stalled.
Unpaid Legal Bills: Trial Retainers, Post-Decree Balances & Fee Awards
Unpaid legal bills left open after a trial retainer runs out, a final decree is entered, or a fee award is ordered and the former client stops responding. We confirm the retainer or award supports a clean claim, then present only the lump-sum figure your firm authorizes. No payment plans.
Unpaid Legal Bills: Aged Invoices, Trial Retainers & Multi-Phase Billing
Unpaid legal bills past 60 to 120 days, or retainers exhausted while the matter continued, owed by corporate clients who expect the firm to wait. A filed, unserved complaint shows them a real docket without the firm opening discovery or assigning partner hours.
Unpaid Legal Bills: Staged Retainers, Trial Per-Diems & Guarantor Obligations
Unpaid legal bills for staged retainers and trial per-diems after arraignment, plea, or sentencing, often with a family member or company standing behind them as guarantor. Communications stay commercial, and nothing touches the underlying matter.
Unpaid Legal Bills: Advisory Invoices, Estate Administration Fees & Closing Balances
Unpaid legal bills for transactional, estate administration, and closing work that stall over beneficiary disputes, delayed closings, or unresponsive boards. We deal with the officer or fiduciary directly, under your written authorization. No installment arrangements.
Send us three dormant files your firm has stopped pursuing. You see how the engagement runs on your own receivables before deciding whether to send anything more.
Or call Neil J. Murphy: 201-500-8479
We do not publish recovery rates. What a file resolves for depends on underwriting and on the figure your firm authorizes, and we review it with you file by file once a confidentiality agreement is in place. These figures come only from your own inputs, and the setup fee is charged only on files we accept.
A weak file gets weaker the moment it is put in front of a court. We review first, and we decline files that will not support the claim.
Whether the engagement agreement, the invoices, and the billing record will support the claim as pleaded.
Whether an individual or guarantor stands behind the entity, and who actually signed the operative agreement.
Whether there is a solvent, operating party at the other end, and what a recovery would realistically reach.
Whether a realistic settlement clears a figure your firm would accept once fees are accounted for.
You receive a written decision — accept, accept subject to conditions, or decline — with a recommended floor and the risks that matter most. The screen itself, including our criteria and weightings, is proprietary and stays with us.
Underwriting a file takes real time before a dollar is ever recovered, so the setup fee is charged up front. The larger part of our compensation still depends entirely on getting you paid.
Due upon file acceptance under the Three-File Pilot. It covers forensic underwriting and settlement administration, earned upon acceptance whether or not the file settles.
Firms submitting several files, or an entire aged-receivable portfolio, can agree a single negotiated fee in place of per-file pricing.
A success fee calculated solely on cleared recoveries (wire, cashier’s check, certified check, or ACH), payable within 48 hours of clearance. We never charge on funds that do not clear.
Exact percentages and payment timing are set out in a short engagement letter, which follows a one-page confidentiality agreement.
NJM is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. We do not argue the merits, interpret your engagement agreement, or advise any party. We present terms your firm has authorized, and we state our role in writing to everyone we contact. All funds route directly into your Attorney Business Account (or Attorney Trust Account if subject to a pending Rule 1:20A-6 fee dispute), fully consistent with RPC 1.15 and RPC 5.4. NJM never holds client funds. If opposing counsel appears, we restate your authorized figure and deadline and return the matter to you.
This page describes the problem and the result in full. How the work is carried out, including our underwriting criteria, how offers are structured and timed, and the language we use, is shared only under a one-page confidentiality agreement. The Murphy Method™, The Pocket Docket Protocol™, and The Golden Bridge™ are trademarks and proprietary methodologies of NJM Recovery & Consulting Services LLC.
We apply the same approach for business owners holding unpaid business-to-business invoices of $10,000 or more, working under the owner's own counsel.
View That PracticeA few lines is enough to begin. We respond within one business day.
Or call 201-500-8479.