Photo of Sam Turco

I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, the 3rd of six children.  We grew up in the meat packing district of South Omaha.  I graduated from Omaha Central High School 1985.

 My wife, Kathy, and I are raising 3 children.   Outside of work, I spend a lot of time escorting children to sporting events while trying to sneak in a long bicycle ride on the weekends.

Areas of Practice
  • 100% Bankruptcy Law
Litigation Percentage
  • 5% of Practice Devoted to Litigation
Bar Admissions
  • Nebraska, 1992
  • Iowa
  • U.S. District Court District of Nebraska, 2010
  • U.S. Tax Court

When you get sued you hang your head.  You feel like the battle is lost when the Sheriff delivers the court summons to your door. 

But getting sued is not the end of the battle. No, getting sued may be the best thing the other side did to equalize the playing field.

Yes, getting

If you were sued on a debt you have 30 days from the date you are served the paperwork to file a written response with the Clerk of the Court.

Let’s review:

  • You have 30 days to respond.
  • The response must be written
  • The response must be filed with the Clerk of the Court.

How

The second great power of Discovery is the Motion to Produce Documents.

When a bill collector sues for nonpayment of a debt, they also open themselves up to answer questions–finally!!–and to provide documents.

What type of documents? Well, any document relevant to the debt.

Sued on a medical debt?

  • Demand to see the invoices and

You were sued on a collection lawsuit and managed to file a written response with the Clerk of the Court within 30 days. Congratulations, you have stopped the entry of a default judgement.

But now what? What is your plan of action after filing a response to the lawsuit?

The next phase is to get

If you bothered to file a written response to a lawsuit with the Clerk of the Court, what is the next step?

What happens after you respond to a lawsuit?

Discovery:

The next step in litigation is called “discovery.” It is your opportunity (and the creditor’s opportunity) to get answers to questions. Unfortunately, this tends

The client runs a decent sized construction operation.  Revenues in excess of a quarter million per year.

But he has no accounting system.  He just takes his bank statements, receipts and chicken scratch notes to the tax man once a year to crank out a tax return.

No monthly bank account reconciliations.

No computerized records.

There is a marriage penalty in bankruptcy law.  Unmarried couples receive favored treatment, especially on the six-month income calculation called the Means Test.

A married debtor who lives with his or her spouse must list all gross income of their spouse on the income schedules.  However, an unmarried debtor who lives with a partner must