A business owner contacted our firm last week about a variety of business matters which we were successfully able to address.  However, during the conversation, this business owner stated that he sent a staff member to the County Court House to file a lein against a company in which the his firm had performed services but had not yet been compensated for the work.

As we discussed this matter, the business owner said that the charge in dispute was about $2100– a significant sum for a small business.  The business owner stated that he had ordered a “Do It Yourself” legal kit from some internet site in order to prepare the necessary documentation to send to the company which owed the money.  WHOA!  Solomon Bruce Consulting LLC are not lawyers and DO NOT provide legal advice, however, we clearly recognize when professional legal help is necessary and required.

     We suggested to the business owner that he engage competent legal counsel to review this matter and prepare the proper paperwork before proceeding.  The business owner said that he had talked with the firms corporate attorney.  The corporate attorney stated that the amount of legal time required to review and prepare the necessary documentation in this matter would exceed the value of the debt.  The corporate attorney’s advice was to write it off and forget it.

The business owner elected to use the Do It Yourself kit touted on the internet and try and recover his fee for services performed.

Our recommendation was to follow the advice of the corporate attorney, recognizing that although $2100 is a significant amount of funds to write off, taking “Do It Yourself” legal action may, repeat may, result in significantly more costs if something goes wrong, a word is left off or some legal phrase is not correctly represented.

Do It Yourself work is fine for painting the bathroom or a spare bedroom– however, the vagaries and intricacies of legal work is such that a trained, licensed, educated professional is used when working in areas where one has little to no experience or expertise.

Our experience with many individuals who attempt to do a wide variety of “Do It Yourself” work is that in the end, the cost, frustration, hassle and lack of positive results cost more than using a trained professional.  Think about this before you attempt to try to “Do It Yourself!”