It’s 6:30 am and I’m anxious to get to my office to implement the improvements in my practice that I’ve been considering as we approach January, 2011. Isn’t one of Poor Richard’s aphorisms, “well begun is half done”? Don’t miss my friend Wendell Sherk’s piece, A Christmas Cheer for Consumer Lawyers. He captures the trials […]
Resolutions
It’s time to start considering resolutions for the New Year. I find I’m not very focused on December 31st and the idea has lost steam if I don’t line out my resolutions til mid January. In the context of a consumer bankruptcy practice, we’re probably talking about “goals” for the New Year: resolutions seems so […]
Earmark Tax Payments
Did you know that a taxpayer making a voluntary payment to the IRS can designate to which liability it is credited? The doctrine is called earmarking and it’s really useful when a prospective debtor owes taxes for both priority and non priority years. Absent instructions from the payor, the IRS applies payment to the oldest […]
Flush Out Client Misinformation
After you’ve gasped and giggled at the misleading bankruptcy information spotlighted here earlier, there is a serious point here: this sort of tripe creates real work for bankruptcy lawyers and a very real trap for clients. Incomplete, overstated, inaccurate stuff about bankruptcy is all over the web, authored by apparently knowledgeable sources. Your prospects read […]
Blog Heaven
On the off chance you want to read something other than this blog <g>, may I point you to the ABA’s list of candidates for best legal blogs. If I had a 36 hour day, I’d be reading an number of these. My favorite bankruptcy blog, of course, is Credit Slips, the work of a […]
Produce Real Evidence In Bankruptcy Disputes
More lawyering for faster confirmation of Chapter 13 cases was the advice. The newest judge on our bench called on a room full of bankruptcy attorneys to speed up the flow of cases through his (packed) courtroom by taking discovery. When an informal request of the objecting creditor doesn’t yield the information you need, send […]
Near Sighted Leading the Blind
When a trainer of bankruptcy paralegals writes about clients failing the Chapter 13 means test, I blanch, or worse. We had a couple who originally wanted to file a Chapter 13 so they could keep their home. However, they were unable to pass the Means Test. The calculation of the debtor’s monthly disposable income on […]
