Turnbull Law Group Lawsuit: Georgia AG Probe and 28% Fee

Turnbull Law Group is the subject of a pending investigation by the Georgia Attorney General’s consumer protection division, along with its partner Freedom Debt Relief, over fee practices that clients say left them deeper in debt. No lawsuit, consent order, or formal charges against the Chicago-area debt settlement firm have been publicly announced as of mid-2026.¹ The complaints, a Better Business Bureau alert, and the state inquiry all center on the same issue: a 28% fee that clients say ate most of their monthly payments before creditors saw much of anything.

The Georgia Attorney General Investigation

A spokesperson for the Georgia Attorney General’s consumer protection division confirmed that both Turnbull Law Group and Freedom Debt Relief are under investigation. The office has declined further comment.¹

Freedom Debt Relief operates alongside Turnbull in Georgia and some other states. Freedom has stated that it “provides non-legal administrative services to Turnbull Law Group and its clients by providing administrative and customer service support, including answering and routing calls.”¹ Freedom was itself the subject of a 2019 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau case alleging it charged consumers without settling their debts and misled them about fees; it paid $20 million in restitution and a $5 million civil penalty without admitting wrongdoing.²

What Clients Say Happened to Their Money

The complaints share a shape. Clients enroll, make monthly deposits into a bank account, and then discover that the firm’s fees are consuming most of what they put in while their debts sit largely untouched.

Jodi Ford, who lives in suburban Atlanta, enrolled with about $40,000 in debt. Over 18 months she paid Turnbull Law Group more than $13,000. According to Ford and her attorney, roughly $2,300 of that went toward her actual debts. Her attorney told NBC 5 Chicago that the firm was taking its fees “up front before they started paying the creditors.” Ford said she ended up worse off and had to hire a personal attorney to sort out her finances.³

A separate Georgia Watch and Atlanta News First investigation profiled a metro Atlanta woman who paid the firm $7,700, of which roughly $6,600 was taken as fees. Her contract required 28% of her total enrolled debt in fees. She filed complaints with the Georgia Attorney General’s consumer protection division, the Illinois state bar association, and the State Bar of Georgia.⁴ She later settled with the firm for an undisclosed refund.¹

Victoria Walker of Atlanta enrolled with $14,000 in medical and credit card debt. Her contract split the 28% fee into a 4.5% legal retainer and 23.5% for “non-legal law-related services.” She canceled after the Atlanta News First investigation and estimated the cancellation saved her about $4,000.¹

Why the 28% Fee Is the Fight

Georgia’s Debt Adjustment Act caps fees charged by debt relief companies at 7.5% of the negotiated monthly payment.⁵ Turnbull’s 28% is well above that.

Christopher Turnbull, who leads the firm, says the cap does not apply to him. The statute exempts “debt adjusting incurred in the practice of law in this state,” and he has cited the Supreme Court of Georgia’s ruling in In Re UPL Advisory Opinion 2003-1 for the position that debt negotiation is the practice of law and therefore falls within that exemption.⁵ Whether that exemption actually shields the firm is a question the Georgia investigation is positioned to answer.

Regulators elsewhere have taken a hard look at debt settlement operations structured around a law firm label. In January 2024, the CFPB and seven state attorneys general sued StratFS, LLC (formerly Strategic Financial Solutions) and affiliated law firms, alleging they collected illegal advance fees through an arrangement where a sales operation contracted with “a constantly rotating series of law firms.”⁶ Turnbull Law Group was not named in that case.

Better Business Bureau Alert

The BBB has flagged Turnbull Law Group twice. As of a September 2023 NBC 5 report, the bureau had 52 complaints on file against the firm, most from the preceding year, and issued a warning citing a “pattern of complaints” in which clients alleged the company collected fees before paying creditors.³

Earlier, in November 2020, the BBB investigated the firm and asked for supporting documents including fee disclosures and written client agreements. The BBB says the firm refused to provide them. The bureau then placed an alert on the company and stated it “cannot offer confidence in the company’s business practices.” The firm is not BBB-accredited.⁷

Complaints filed with the BBB include allegations that the firm failed to provide legal representation after clients received court summons on their debts, kept debiting bank accounts after clients canceled, and held excess funds without prompt return.⁷

What the Firm Says

Turnbull Law Group disputes the complaints. In a statement to NBC 5 Chicago, the firm said it serves 43,000 active clients and characterized the complaints as a “tiny fraction” of its client base. It stated that “our client engagements clearly provide that we are not paid any fees until a debt is settled” and that clients’ monthly deposits sit in FDIC-insured accounts the clients control, from which they are “free to remove their funds at any time.”³ The firm’s website describes its fee as a “percentage of your enrolled debt” and says the fee on a given debt is not collected until the firm has negotiated a settlement, the client has approved it, and the creditor has been paid.⁸

Christopher Turnbull has declined on-camera interviews but says the firm has served 120,000 clients nationally and resolved more than 350,000 accounts totaling over $1.7 billion in personal debt, including 17,000 Georgia clients and $380 million in Georgia debt.⁵ He maintains the firm’s fee structure is legal under Georgia’s law-firm exemption.

1
Atlanta News First. Atlanta Woman Cancels Debt Relief Contract Following Investigation Into Fees
2
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Freedom Debt Relief
3
NBC Chicago. Debt Relief Company Puts Woman in Thousands of Dollars of Additional Debt
4
Georgia Watch. Metro Atlanta Woman Pays Thousands to Debt Relief Law Firm
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Atlanta News First. Metro Atlanta Woman Pays Thousands to Debt Relief Law Firm
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New York State Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General James, CFPB, and Multistate Coalition Protect Consumers From Debt
7
SoloSuit. Turnbull Law Group Debt Settlement Reviews
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Turnbull Law Group. Debt Negotiation