Bankruptcy Mastery

Becoming a better bankruptcy lawyer

Tax Troubles Ahead

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Severe weather alert:  IRS turbulence spotted The head of our local IRS insolvency section announced a reading of BAPCPA which turns the law as we know it on its head. Worse it portends surprised counsel and unhappy Chapter 13 clients if it is accepted. Here's his contention: the taxes associated with any tax return filed after the petition  are non dischargeable. Therefore, at the … [Continue reading...]

Polish Your Advocacy Mindset

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Be an advocate-your client has enough opponents. It's no accident that the word for lawyer in Scotland, Belgium and India is advocate. If we do our jobs for bankruptcy clients well, we are advocates for their interests at every stage of the game. Yet I hear lawyers assuming that there is a known and pat answer to every question under BAPCPA  and that the answer is the one the trustee … [Continue reading...]

New Kid On The SoCal Bankruptcy Block

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

I'm deviating from the usual here to cheer on my friend and partner in the adventure that is Bankruptcy Mastery, Jay Fleischman. Yesterday I presented him for swearing in to the California Bar yesterday, some 17 years after he took the New York Bar. Personally, I'm not sure I could muster the energy and the focus to sit for the bar again.  It had to be tough when all his friends and … [Continue reading...]

On Pricing The Consumer Bankruptcy Case And Involuntary Pro Bono Work

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

You probably spend hours in service of your client without compensation.  At least, that's how the majority of consumer bankruptcy lawyers operate.   Is this the only way to practice? It seems as if the consumer debtor bankruptcy bar has been brought up to believe that we should expect no payment from our clients once the case is filed.  Whether we price our services on an hourly basis or on … [Continue reading...]

How To View Preferences Through The Lens Of A Chapter 13

By Filed Under: Chapter 13

Chapter 13 is often the chapter of choice when the client's financial past includes avoidable transfers. Most clients are intent that the news of their bankruptcy not spread and especially horrified at the prospect of a Chapter 7 trustee suing their family members to recover preferences. At bottom, who really cares if a trustee avoids the recent payments to Capital One? More power to him, … [Continue reading...]

Documents Be Damned

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Contrary evidence can trump the pre printed form. I saw it in a case I uncovered in updating the Complete Guide to Means Testing for the NACBA Fall Workshop. Swartzentruber ( 2009 WL 28730003 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2009)) dealt with means testing and the classification of debts as consumer or non consumer. The debtors there bought a second residence, this one in Florida, and checked the box … [Continue reading...]

Fifty Shades of Summer at Mastery

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Summertime.....another Gershwin song. Maybe the living is easy, and maybe not.  Bankruptcy is a challenging way to make a living. Two summers ago, when this publication and lots of bankruptcy lawyers were new, we proposed a summer reading list of Supreme Court cases that you should know by name and holding. The focus was on, not the recent stuff, which presumably you're reading as they … [Continue reading...]

George Gershwin Does Bankruptcy

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

choice of chapter

Cases keep getting referred to my office when the clients are over the debt limits for Chapter 13. (Debt limits are less of a barrier since the debt limit moved to $2.75 M in 2022). The assumption seems to be that if the debt is that large, a Chapter 11 is required.  It ain't necessarily so. (Care to hum a few bars?). Goals come first Client goals are the first issue when choosing … [Continue reading...]

Best Bankruptcy CLE For Under A Buck

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

What bankruptcy can and cannot do for borrowers in distress is the subtitle of a free, three hour, on demand presentation by PLI. I was part of the panel that surveyed the field for new lawyers and those new to the intersection of real property and bankruptcy. Live, it was fun since all the audience had an IPad with the materials at their seat and my co panelists were … [Continue reading...]

Bankruptcy’s Three Little Words

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Like waltz tempo, there's an appeal in threes: Larry, Moe, and Curly Faith, hope, and charity Tinkers, Evers, and Chance In bankruptcy, the trio is unliquidated, contingent, and disputed. They're the prescribed adjectives for describing claims on the schedules.   We all love adjectives, don't we? Contingent The definition of contingent,  in our context,  focuses … [Continue reading...]

Get To The Heart Of This Lien Business

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

When I trip over the same issue three times in a week, it's time to discuss it here. In my office, it came up when I spotted a creditor on Schedule D with a lien on a pleasure boat.  Only problem was that no boat was listed on Schedule B; it belonged to the debtor's corporation. It surfaced on a list serve when the question turned on tax liens on 401(k) accounts. Then, we saw it when our … [Continue reading...]

No Hits, No Runs, But Lots Of Errors

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Their unconfirmed Chapter 13 case was dismissed and the unrepresented debtors sitting before the judge didn’t understand. “Why did our payments keep going up?”  they asked.  "We can't pay that much". The judge noted that their current plan called for a pot of $73,000 over the life of the plan. The trustee had the answer:  because the means test calculation that your former attorney filed … [Continue reading...]

Win at Confirmation, Lose the House

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

The finality of plan confirmation was a two edged sword for the debtor's lawyer defending a relief from stay motion. You win, for now, the judge told him.  But the train wreck is coming. The lender's lawyer complained, unsuccessfully it turned out, that the mortgage payment had increased from the payment at confirmation.   The plan simply provided a number that reflected the mortgage payment … [Continue reading...]