Bankruptcy Mastery

Becoming a better bankruptcy lawyer

Face Off With Secured Creditor

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

When faced with a disputed lien strip, don't discount the possibility of compromise. I wrote last time about the seeming impossibility of compromising a §707(b)(3) action.  Next to that, lien strips are easy. Yet I see attorneys all around me folding the moment a secured creditor contests a motion to value.  What opportunities squandered. Having just come off a day long trial where good … [Continue reading...]

High Income Debtors & Money On The Table

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

High stakes & the UST

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...]

Pot (Plan), Anyone?

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

What's a Chapter 13 pot plan, you ask. Not one drafted while under the influence, for sure. A "pot plan" is the contrast to a "percentage plan". They are alternative ways to summarize the measure of what the debtor in a Chapter 13 plan proposes to pay into the plan. A percentage plan reads something like this:  allowed unsecured claims shall receive 20% of their claim. The allowed … [Continue reading...]

How Much Does My Plan Have To Pay?

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Bankruptcy answers from thin air

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...]

Why Ask Why?

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

question mark

Any parent who's lived through the terrible 2's  knows the appeal, and the annoyance, of the question "why". Life, to a two year old, is a series of interconnected questions. Why are things this way?  Why? The centrality of that question to bankruptcy lawyers surprised me this weekend when Jay Fleischman and I conducted a workshop on practice skills for bankruptcy lawyers.  Jay was … [Continue reading...]

Scary Peak At Loan Mod Future

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Scary future

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...]

Five Shortcuts To The Latest In Bankruptcy

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Someone asked me the other day how I keep up on cases. I bit my tongue, since my usual sense about advance sheets and the like is that I'm horribly behind.  (I'm so behind I'm talking about "advance sheets", cases printed on paper!). Reading my email seems to consume a disproportionate portion of the day.  What advice could I possibly have about being current? OK.  If you need an answer, … [Continue reading...]

How To Avoid Being Thrown Under The Bankruptcy Bus

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

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...]

Can You Clean Up After Business Closure?

By Filed Under: Business bankruptcy

mopping up business

Whether it makes sense to file a Chapter 7 for a corporation is a nuanced issue. Whether you advise to file Chapter 7 for the corporation or just shut the business down without bankruptcy, there's some mop-up to do. Miss these wind up issues and the corporate officers will not sing your praises. Payroll taxes Too often, a failing corporation lets its employees goes or stops paying the … [Continue reading...]

Why No Look Fees Are No Good For Bankruptcy Lawyers

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

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...]

Here’s A Way To Rescue Your Client’s Exemptions

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

Do you know which ignored prefiling issue  triggers the most reopened bankruptcy cases? I've got no data but my money's on avoidable judicial liens. We as bankruptcy attorneys have gotten so caught up in avoiding consensual mortgages where they are totally unsecured that we forget to look for the easy stuff.  Stuff that is available to our clients in Chapter 7 and Chapter … [Continue reading...]

Here Are 3 Ways To Cram Down A Car In Spite Of The Hanging Paragraph

By Filed Under: Bankruptcy Practice

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...]