treated as an “initial communication” for purposes of the Act’s procedural safeguards, known as the validation notice requirements. See 15 U.S.C.A. § 1692g(d). That amendment, which carves out a narrow exemption for attorney work-product, evinces a legislative recognition that the FDCPA applies to attorneys. By expressly excluding legal pleadings from one portion of the FDCPA, Congress tacitly reaffirmed the applicability of the remainder of the Act’s substantive provisions to law firms engaged in debt collection. See Heintz, supra, 514 U.S. at 292,115 S.Ct. at 1490, 131 L.Ed.2d at 398. Importantly, the amendment reversed precedent holding that pleadings may be an initial communication under the FDCPA. See, e.g., Thomas v. Law Firm of Simpson & Cybak, 392 F.3d 914, 918 (7th Cir.2004) (<HOLDING>). By leaving Heintz untouched, the recent
holding that pleadings are initial communication under fdcpa holding that equitable relief is not available to an individual under this section of the fdcpa holding that back rent is debt under the fdcpa holding that unpaid traffic fine is not debt under fdcpa holding that an initial communication within the meaning of the fdcpa includes the initiation of a lawsuit