Summary: Under its private counsel debt collection program, the Justice Department has contracted with private counsel firms in a number of judicial districts to litigate and collect nontax delinquent civil debts. The purpose of the pilot program is to see whether private counsels can reduce civil case backlogs in U.S. Attorney offices and can cost-effectively collect such delinquent debts. GAO found that the program has generally been successful. Through September 1992, private counsel firms and U.S. Attorney offices participating in the pilot program in seven federal judicial districts collected $122.5 million in debt, at a total estimated cost of $5.3 million. GAO concludes that private counsel firms were cost effective in collecting nontax civil debt. Although U.S. Attorney offices collected more money than private counsel firms, the latter closed more cases at a lower unit cost. Private counsel firms helped work through the existing debt caseload, addressing both large numbers of the debt collection cases that were backlogged at the program's inception and later handling most of the newly referred cases. Most importantly, private counsel firms worked cases and collected debt that U.S. Attorney offices might not have otherwise addressed because of their workloads. In GAO's view, allowing Justice the option of contracting with private counsel firms to help with debt collection when necessary is a generally positive approach to addressing the civil debt collection problem.
