For attorneys
The matters your rate structure can't touch. Send them here.
Every practice generates them: the divorce client whose ex-business partner owes $6,000, the PI client with a $4,500 property claim the carrier won't touch, the business client with a drawer of small receivables. Too small for your hourly model, too real to wave off. That's the entire book of business here — and referring it out shouldn't mean losing the client.
How a referral works
- Conflict check first, before any substantive conversation;
- Defined-scope engagement, directly with the client — the small claims matter, start to finish, in writing, with the boundary explicit: anything beyond this docket goes back to you;
- Your client stays your client. We don't cross-sell, we don't expand scope, and the matter file returns to you at conclusion;
- Status visibility — you're copied at the milestones that matter: filing, service, hearing result, and collection posture;
- Overflow works the same way — if your office simply doesn't want to staff a small claims docket appearance, we'll take it on the same defined-scope terms.
Fee arrangements comply with the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct governing referrals and division of fees; most engagements here are flat-fee and quoted to the client up front (fee structure).
Why a dedicated docket practice
Small claims looks procedurally trivial until it isn't. The traps are specific, statutory, and unforgiving of generalists who visit the docket twice a year:
- §1751(C) — attorney-fee awards in uncontested cases cap at 10% of judgment, 25% with documentation; contested cases don't cap. Fee expectations get set accordingly, in writing.
- §1757 — transfer to the district docket is discretionary under $7,500 but mandatory at $7,500+ on the defendant's motion. Claim sizing is strategy, not arithmetic.
- §1758 — counterclaims arrive by verified answer, personally delivered, up to 72 hours before the hearing. We prepare clients for the ambush window.
- §1773(B) — no service within 180 days and the case is deemed dismissed as to that defendant. Service is managed against a calendar, not mailed and forgotten.
- §1751(B) — assignees can't file, which is why your client's receivables get collected in your client's name, never "handed off."
Good referrals for this desk
- Sub-$10,000 collection matters of any flavor
- Replevin of personal property under $10,000
- Judgment enforcement on existing small claims judgments
- Volume receivables for business clients
Plaintiff-side only. Tulsa County docket.