I want to know if I need an attorney to contact my former employer and tell them to pay me my next 5 monthly commission statements 'on time' or be sued.

There is no dispute whether I am owed my sales commissions in the first place. There exists a legal agreement between my former employer and myself stating that I will be paid for 6 consecutive months following the termination of my independent contractor agreement.

The problem is that I'm not getting paid on the regular sales commission payment schedule (i.e. the end of each month). I find myself having to have make repeated phone calls and sending several emails to get my former employer to respond.

Last month I had to wait an extra 10 days to get paid. The month before that my payment was delayed for almost 2 weeks. I'm tired of having to do this every month. I don't feel I should have to do this for the next 5 months.

So do I need an attorney to step in and get this resolved? Ideally I want my former employer to pay my next 5 commission payments on a regular basis (i.e. the last week of every month) AND send me a copy of my commissions for my own records. I don't want to make another phone call or send another email pleading my former employer to send me my wages.

Thank you.

There isn't a good mechinism for an attorney to compel them to pay you on time while you still work there. I suggest finding a job that pays on time, and saving the money you would have spent on attorney's fees (this is something you would have to pay an attorney by the hour for).

Megan, You may have missed where he said this is a FORMER employer who's slow to pay...

Whoops, I sure did.

There are always issues when you have ongoing commissions coming in for a former employer. While the law is generally on the side of the employee getting paid, there are a lot of ways that companies can get out of paying commissions that come in well after the employee has left. If it is a significant amount of money, and the company is not refusing to pay you, you can probably get an attorney interested. If it is not more than, say, $5000, I would reccomend filing a claim with the DLSE.