When to hire a lawyer?

How long to keep negotiating before turning it over to a lawyer...

[proboscis]

I have a contract with a company and they've sold at least one of my items but have not paid me any royalties.

They manufacture as well as sell the items so I have no idea how much they've actually sold, could be just the one item or a thousand items. I only know of one for sure because I found the person they sold it to by chance online.

At first the company said there were no sales at all, then I explained that I know at least one item was sold because I talked to the person who bought it, then they admitted that there were sales. And they did say sales, plural.

Since then, I have asked a few more times for them to tell me how much they owe me, probably 6 or 7 times I've asked in total, but they always have an excuse or they say that they'll get back to me on a certain day but they never do.

So how long do people usually go on like this? Is it normal to hire a lawyer right away in a situation like this, or do I ask them 7 more times?

It's going to be really expensive for me, but I don't know how else to resolve this. I don't even know what a lawyer will do, can't the company just lie to the lawyer?

Advice? Thanks :)

[Corey Bryant]

Usually all it takes is a letter from the attorney and they would pay. Consider sending them a Demand for Payment letter and then letting an attorney handle it.

Allbusiness.com for the form and / or Internet Litigators (.com) for the legal advice

-Corey

[jtara]

You should have hired a lawyer before you made the manufacturing/sales agreement.

If you'd done so, I imagine he would have insisted on an auditing provision.

[proboscis]

Hmm...I see there is an auditing provision, it says if they don't pay I can have there books audited and they have to pay for it.

I want to do that, how do I do that?

[Corey Bryant]

Send them a registered letter pointing that out and then contact an auditor willing to work under those circumstances.

Still seems you should talk to an attorney for professional legal advice though.

-Corey

[Fortune Hunter]

proboscis:

While I agree partially with Corey about talking to a lawyer to simply find out what your rights and options are I personally would be VERY careful about getting them involved. Remember right now it could be a simple mis-understanding or an oversight on their part.

That is not to say they are not doing something wrong, but the second you involve an attorney whatever hope you had of working this out peacefully and coming to a non-expensive solution is gone. You will end up battling it out with lawyers and at the end of the day the attorneys are the only ones who make any money. You BOTH will lose your shirts in the fight.

When things like this arise I can't help but think of a Danny Devito movie from years ago where he comments about all the lawyers he has working for him. He says they [lawyers] are like nuclear weapons, he has them because the other side has them, but once you use them they f!*k everything up!

FH

[proboscis]

Thanks you guys! The last email I sent her said that if I didn't get the reports within a few days that they would hear from my attorney. They never sent them, so I guess I have to go ahead now or give up.

I'm using World Law Direct, anyone used them before?

[bostons4u]

What is the amount of money involved? Usually this decides if you want to make a big deal of it or not.