For Javitch, Block, Eisen & Rathbone (JBER), Business Is Booming

Times may be tough for some companies, but for Javitch, Block, Eisen & Rathbone (JBER), a creditor?s law firm, business is booming. In the past two years JBER has grown more than 44%, and in 2001 alone, they opened two new offices, expanded two of their satellite offices, and added 53 new staff positions. Their insurance subrogation department grew ten-fold during the same period. According to industry statistics, JBER is now one of the eight largest creditor representation firms in the U.S. based upon gross revenues for 2000.

Moreover, the growth in revenue, and expansion are expected to continue in 2002, says partner Joel Rathbone.

JBER?s astute management, aggressive marketing plan, strategic diversification, and state-of-the-art technology are responsible for much of their success, but the state of the economy is also a factor. Many consumers are still slow in paying their bills and are making more late credit card payments than last year, because of layoffs, says Rathbone. Bankruptcies are increasing, credit card delinquencies are at the highest level in three years and there has been an increase in the number of credit card issuers writing off bad loans. These are indicators that more and more consumers are struggling to pay their debts, he explains.

The state of the economy aside, JBER is a company with an aggressive projection plan for growth. In addition to a more than rapidly-growing consumer debt collections practice, JBER?s insurance subrogation had triple-digit growth last year.

JBER?s areas of concentration are: collections, bankruptcy, commercial litigation, landlord/tenant law, insurance subrogation, and business transactions. The firm is headquartered in Cleveland and has offices in Columbus and Cincinnati. They also have calling centers in suburban Gahanna, and Independence. Their national practice, which includes full service collections and bankruptcy departments, processes thousands of transactions a day automatically with their proprietary software.