As of today, I am ending my practice under the name Consumer Law Office of Steve Hofer, BUT I have joined up with attorney Keith Hagan, and we have formed a new firm, Hofer Hagan LLP.  Other than the new name, not much is changing. Keith and I have been doing most of our cases […]

Since I don’t practice bankruptcy law, I am just now learning about the new Chapter 5 bankruptcy provision that went into effect February 2020.  Subchapter 5 is intended to be a simplified and less-costly alternative to a Chapter 11 reorganization.  Chapter 5 is much like a Chapter 11, but there is no creditors committee. Effectively, […]

We have noticed an uptick in lawsuit activity by Automotive Finance Corporation, -also known as “AFC”.  For the past two and a half years, Keith Hagan and I have been handling a lot of dealer floorplan defense cases against Nextgear Capital, and a few cases against AFC. This is because Nextgear historically sued a lot […]

I had another client who plead guilty to a crime unrelated to what I was representing him for.  He had to serve some prison time.  Unfortunately, before he went to prison, he did not execute a power of attorney to let somebody else handle the civil case in which I was representing him.  The difficult […]

I have been receiving a rash of complaints lately from Wholesale auto and truck sellers who floorplanned with Nextgear. It seems the Nextgear model of requiring periodic inventory checks at the dealer’s place of business doesn’t mesh with typical wholesaling practice where vehicles are physically located in warehouses or out on consignment.  This has the […]

Last week’s New York Times Sunday magazine had a feature story detailing the criminal underworld network behind the bottom feeder debt collection industry.  The article, by Jake Halpern,  titled Paperboys: Inside the Dark Lucrative World of Consumer Debt Collection explains how the industry uses lies and pressure to make huge profits by paying 1% of […]