The ultimate Boot Camp will begin on Friday at 4:00 p.m. in Max’s state-of-the-art learning center at his remote 160-acre South Mountain Farm. This particular Boot Camp will center around a bankruptcy case against a mortgage servicer that is also subject to claims under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA). You will be taken through the “nuts and bolts” of how to gather pre-trial evidence and draft a bullet-proof complaint.

The initial training will be held at the Farm through sunset on Saturday afternoon. Then, early Sunday morning, all of the Boot Campers will be transported to the Cleveland County Courthouse for a full day of work in the historic Courtroom Number 2. Almost every check on Max’s famous “Wall of Shame” was the result of legal proceedings in this very courtroom.

There is much to do before the Boot Camp moves to the courtroom. Pete says that the real secret of success is “learning how to capture the evidence,” and Max’s motto is “never file a complaint unless you are ready to try the case the very next day.” Each Boot Camper will learn how these two outstanding lawyers get things done with tapes, telephones, letters, bills, statements, transaction codes, loan histories, and payoff statements. “The essential skill,” says Pete, is to “learn how to find and to follow the evidence.” Max, on the other hand, says “every consumer lawyer must understand how to read the ‘Da Vinci Code’ promulgated by the mortgage servicers and most importantly how to follow the money.” Max says you have to learn “how to track them down and how to tack them down.” Both Max and Pete agree that you must be able to place every creditor and debt collector in a very small room with no doors, no windows and only one way out—through you!

In order to demonstrate the interplay of between the FDCPA and the Bankruptcy Code, Max and Pete will use the exact same fact situation and walk each camper through the drafting of an FDCPA complaint for filing in Federal District Court and an Adversary Proceeding for filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court. Both Pete and Max believe that the complaint is the beginning and the end of every good case. “Once they read my complaint, they very next thing the Defendant should do is call me and ask me how much,” says Pete.