Free Legal Aid for Businesses
The government’s armies of lawyers can give you powerful legal aid if you’ve been victimized in business dealings. Of course, you may want your own attorney involved too, to protect your interests; but if there’s a valid case against someone, the government will undertake the main effort and will pay for it.
Let’s say you’re defrauded by a check floating or kiting scheme. Report it to the local federal or state prosecutor. Next get in touch with the regional office of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and then the state banking commission. All these offices have jurisdiction. They can coordinate enforcement action. Their threats of a criminal judgment, with possible fine and jail, may be enough to scare the cheater into making quick restitution.
Or suppose you’re damaged by an illegal business maneuver such as a boycott, price-fixing, or unfair allocations by a supplier. The state and federal antitrust agencies are looking for business, so they’ll be glad to hear from you. If your local phone company, for example, gives you static about using a Japanese switchboard, send your lawyer to the local office of the Justice Department’s antitrust investigators. Or maybe powerful patent holders push you around for “infringement” of patents that you believe don’t apply. Here again, the Anti-Trust Division can give you free advice.