Bankruptcy Mastery

Usually my posts here have a message or a lesson imbedded. This one doesn't, unless readers can help me find it. But it was a prickly case that resolved well, for unanticipated reasons.  Perhaps, there's a lesson lurking somewhere here. The clients were well above median income:  a high tech engineer and a stay at home mom with two children under 9. The major creditor was the … [Continue reading...]

When an inexperienced Chapter 13 practitioner asks how much a plan has to propose to pay, I envision the Carnac the Magnificent routine from the Johnny Carson show. Carnak, in turban and robes, puts the sealed envelope with the question to his forehead, provides an answer, then opens the envelope to read the question.  The results were uniformly hilarious. Not so when a bankruptcy lawyer … [Continue reading...]

Loan modifications and the relative casualness with which they are documented scare me. Given the glaring problems that loan servicers have in accounting for payments made by borrowers and expenses charged to loans,  the idea that those same people at the servicer  are making good records about modifications seems naive. Consider that the same people who lose your loan modification … [Continue reading...]

Bankruptcy lawyers find themselves thrown under the proverbial bus time and again. Clients contradict themselves, trustees speak poorly of us during hearings, and even judges from time to time have been known to call us on the carpet for perceived shortcomings. Sometimes we're caught in a position due to an unforeseen turn of events. Other times, we end up stepping under the bus because we … [Continue reading...]

No look fees for bankruptcy cases are comfortable and easy for the practitioner. You can quote a fee for a Chapter 13 confident that most other attorneys in town are quoting the same fee.  No fear of price competition. The client likes it. It appears to offer certainty in an uncertain world to someone worried about how to pay for a debt solution. You can skip preparing fee applications … [Continue reading...]

There are three labeled exits from the 910 freeway.  Find one and you save your client thousands of dollars.  Miss them all and you do your client a disservice. The infamous hanging paragraph in  §1325(a) prohibits bifurcation of a creditor's claim secured by a vehicle into a secured claim and an unsecured claim.  Specifically: section 506 shall not apply to a claim described in that paragraph if … [Continue reading...]

After a long weekend with 900 bankruptcy colleagues, I've been thoroughly reminded about all that remains to be learned about this marvelous profession.  What did I learn, and what was missing? I took my first bankruptcy case 32 years ago, and looking back, I blanch at what I didn't know then.  Even now, I see new angles, new complexities in a law I've been reading almost daily for more than 3 … [Continue reading...]