YourLegalLegUp.com

YourLegalLegUp.com was founded in 2007 as a way to get more help to more consumers being harassed or sued by debt collectors--more cost-effectively.

Kenneth H. Gibert

I practiced law for almost twenty years in St. Louis, Missouri before shifting my efforts to YourLegalLegUp.com.

I graduated from Washington University Law School in St. Louis in the top sixth of my class in 1989. At Washington University, I was a "Regional Scholar" and won the prestigious American Jurisprudence Award in Employment Discrimination, among other honors. From 1990 through 1991 I was a Staff Attorney at the United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, and then I became an associate lawyer for one of the most prominent employment discrimination law firms in the country, the Law Offices of Mary Anne Sedey.

In 1994 I opened the Law Offices of Kenneth H. Gibert. My practice focused initially on employment law and civil rights. I represented the first woman police officer of the City of Overland (a suburb of St. Louis) in her high-profile suit against the city. That suit led to a restructuring of the City of Overland's Police Department and a favorable outcome for my client. I also successfully represented clients in high-profile race and sex discrimination cases against The Ritz Carlton Hotel and Normandy High School, among others.

Early in the year 2000 I changed the focus of my legal career to consumer protection law. I represented several hundred people in lawsuits against a company known as New Horizons Travel Club and its owners, winning numerous awards of damages and punitive damages. All of my clients were released from their contract liability to New Horizons, and their credit histories were repaired as a result of that litigation. In every case that went to trial my clients received awards of damages and punitive damages, and in one case, the jury awarded over one million dollars.

After New Horizons, I represented clients in litigation against scam time-share companies and scam employment agencies, as well as a variety of other companies engaging in consumer fraud. We put a number of these businesses out of the business of defrauding consumers. By 2004 the focus of my practice had shifted more towards consumer lending practices. Out of that practice I began representing consumers being sued on third-party debt cases.

Third-party debt is debt purchased by a debt collector from the company that initially issued credit, and typically this arises from unpaid credit cards. The debt collectors purchase this debt, often many years after no payments have been made, and bring suit. All too often they have no right to do this at all, and they almost always add fees, penalties and interest that could be avoided by defendants if they were represented. Or if they received a little help in defending themselves. There is now almost a trillion dollars of credit card debt, and debt collectors are bringing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of collection cases against consumers throughout the nation per year.

In representing individuals over the years I came to realize that most people being sued for old debt cannot afford to hire an attorney, including people who are disabled, elderly, retired, on a fixed income, or unemployed. This debt collection harassment hits them especially hard. Sometimes they consider bankruptcy as an escape, but this is frequently not necessary or helpful.

Most people could effectively represent themselves against the debt collectors if they had a little help. Therefore, I created YourLegalLegUp.com, the Litigation Manual and the forms and other information available here as a part of my campaign to empower regular people to defend themselves and protect their financial future.

You can get a lot of help from this website, so be sure to bookmark it and sign up for my free email service. It contains articles and news you can use, free reports, and information on recent developments in the law or debt collection process.