2026 Best Business Debt Settlement Lawyers in New Jersey

Best Business Debt Settlement Firms for New Jersey (2026 Rankings)

The New Jersey Debt Adjustment and Credit Counseling Act specifically defines “debt adjusters” as any individuals or businesses who act as go-betweens to contact and negotiate terms with a debtor’s creditors for payment of the debts owed. New Jersey forbids taking on the role of “debt adjuster” with a creditor - unless the business or individual is a licensed non-profit or falls under a list of exemptions, which includes lawyers. Then a May 9, 2025 appellate court ruling, Anchor Law Firm v. State of New Jersey, struck down the exemption provision for lawyers “not principally engaged” in debt adjustment. In its decision, the Appellate Division held that every practicing attorney in the state, regardless of the practice area, qualifies under the debt adjustment law’s exemption. The court reasoned that debt compromise negotiations constitute the practice of law under Supreme Court supervision.

Yellowstone Capital LLC

Why should Yellowstone Capital’s case matter for your own merchant cash advances? The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs obtained a consent order against merchant cash advance company Yellowstone Capital LLC that required it to forgive unpaid debt balances, under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act. Yellowstone Capital must forgive all outstanding balances, about $21.7 million. In addition, it had to pay the state over $5.6 million for restitution, fees, costs and penalties.

A true Merchant Cash Advance works differently from a loan. The company up front gives your business a set sum. It buys a percentage of your future revenue, with a predetermined ceiling on total amount the company receives. You often make daily payments under this scheme. If your income drops, the company performs a reconciliation. It lowers your payments, or even gives you a refund, and because it’s not a loan in most states, usury laws just don’t apply.

The Division’s allegations against Yellowstone: its MCA agreements obligated repayment of a fixed amount plus interest over a set period of time, regardless of how much revenue the customer generated. Rather than forming a contingent share of the customers’ income, the MCAs were essentially loans that lacked the interest rate caps that protect borrowers.

Yellowstone denied doing anything wrong, but the order still forced it to reform. The company must make it easier for customers to obtain reconciliation agreements. Customers will get extra time to ask the lender to review its payment calculations. Reconciliations now go over the whole transaction, rather than just the prior month. Merchants without a default have to be notified they can ask for a reconciliation. Before making collection demands, the company had to review accounts. It stopped using “confessions of judgment” and limited UCC notices. It limited personal guarantees. It charged fewer fees, as well. The company also agreed to impose rules on brokers.

And this New Jersey settlement wasn’t the company’s first run-in with regulators either. In May 2021 it agreed to pay over $9.8 million in restitution. The agreement settled claims by the Federal Trade Commission that the lender took money from customers’ bank accounts without permission, and kept drawing payments even after accounts had been paid in full. On top of that, New York’s Attorney General first started looking into Yellowstone and the merchant cash advance industry as a whole, back in 2018. The New Jersey Attorney General and the Division of Consumer Affairs make it a policy to fight usurious lending that they argue especially hurts lower-income and minority communities. Meanwhile, the New Jersey Bureau of Securities has also been active, issuing a cease and desist order to another MCA business for purportedly selling unregistered securities. And New York’s Attorney General launched a 2020 lawsuit against Richmond Capital Group.

So when you sit down with your legal adviser, ask if they’re on top of business cash advance contracts. If all the lawyer reads is the interest rate, ask why. An attorney familiar with the details and ins and outs of merchant cash advance agreements will have an edge in negotiating with your merchant cash advance company.

There is another layer of protection for you when you work with an attorney. Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(b) - amended effective April 1, 2025, starts out with requiring a lawyer to tell a client the basis of the fee or rate, in writing at or soon after the time the work begins. Changes to the fee in the middle of a case have to come to you in writing too.

Before suing you over unpaid fees, a lawyer has to send written notice of your right to fee arbitration. Then you have 30 days to file. If you miss that deadline, you’re out of luck. The Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection can reimburse you for money stolen by a disciplined or deceased lawyer, but it’s not for fee disputes or malpractice. It has a $400,000 cap.

Timing matters too. In New Jersey, most contract suits, including many business debt lawsuits, have a 6-year statute of limitations. Taxes matter as well. The IRS generally defines settled or canceled debt as taxable income, which you or your business should report on the appropriate schedule.

The two exceptions, or ways around the tax bill, are when the canceled or settled debt is discharged in a Title 11 bankruptcy, or to the extent of your insolvency, but you have to file IRS Form 982. Bankruptcy is another path. Small-business owners face a limit to the amount of debt they can have, to be able to file under Subchapter V of the bankruptcy code. The limit rises to $3,424,000 for new cases filed on or after April 1, 2025. That number has bounced around lately. The temporary $7.5 million limit expired in June 2024. The limit dropped to $3,024,725 then. H.R. 7730 to raise it back to $7.5 million has cleared both houses. However, H.R. 7730 has not reached the President’s desk yet, as of this writing.

So where does that leave you? Gather your MCA contracts and lender notices, ask any NJ-licensed attorney about their experience negotiating business cash advance contracts, and get the lawyer’s fee in writing before they start work for you. Finally, don’t let more months slide by while your lender keeps taking from you.