In most cases you will not need to file the suit. If you fax a copy of the completed complaint form with your final demand letter indicating that the suit will be filed in X amount of time unless arrangements are made to pay your bill, the delinquent client gets the message, and generally calls to arrange payment. Make certain that you fill out the complaint form before you fax it. Very often the small claims clerk will help you to fill it out. After a while, you will be able to do it yourself.

If  the client does not arrange to pay your bill, you follow through with the suit. You can pick up the small claims forms at your court house if you are suing in your state. If you are suing in another state, you can usually down load small claims forms from that state's website. Before you file, investigate to find out if the client is still in business. Otherwise you will win your suit, but there will be no money left to pay you. Superior Court complaints need to be individually drafted, and you may want to get an attorney involved in it. What I call Superior Court is the trial court. In Connecticut it is referred to as the Superior Court. In other states it may be known by another name. In any event, we are talking about the trial court
which supercedes the jurisdiction of the small claims court

If you are organized as a corporation or an LLC, the state in which you file may require you to hire and attorney because you may not be able to represent the corporation or LLC unless you are an attorney. As in Connecticut, it is considered to be an unauthorized practice of law in the superior court, but not in small claims court. If you do get an attorney involved in it , ask him if that state has a statute or common law cause of action which would allow you to recover attorney's fees.

Most small claims courts have jurisdictional amounts above which they can not go. If you are within that jurisdictional amount file in small claims using the proper form for the state in which you file suit.  If the amount of your claim exceeds the jurisdictional amount of the small claims court, you have two options (1) file in the superior court rather than small claims court, or (2) reduce the amount of your claim to the small claim court's jurisdictional amount (in which case your court judgment will be less than the full amount of your bill, but half a loaf is better than none, and you may save yourself an even greater expenditure for attorney's fees in the superior court).


If you determine that you need to file out of state, you can handle the filing by mail in most cases, but you will have to travel and appear in court on the date of your trial. Some courts are even set up to receive certain documents by email or fax, but may require you to send the original to them by snail mail.