Thanks for visiting and for your interest. My paralegal experience goes back several decades in different areas of law. I came back to bankruptcy as a virtual paralegal shortly after BACPA passed.
I am a techy, so working virtually for bankruptcy lawyers around the country is a breeze! I love applying technology to casework and I'm happy to share my tips and insights. [Read more …]
Using Microsoft’s Snipping Tool, I grabbed this address from the back of an electronic invoice from Comcast Communications. It’s an address for the Legal Department of Comcast Cable Communications (One Comcast Center, Philadelphia, PA 19103-2838). I searched online for a specific bankruptcy notice address, but this is the closest I could find. The effective date is only a little more than a year old (March 1, 2011) so it’s fairly current.
A few years ago, when bankruptcy filings were just beginning to soar, a very experienced bankruptcy lawyer told me that I could expect to see this high volume of bankruptcy cases for about two to three years. Then the volume of filings would level off. His explanation was that borrowing, lending, and bankruptcy are like a ‘funnel’; money is loaned, some borrowers fail to repay and end up in bankruptcy.
The credit crisis that began a few years ago had more symptoms than bringing record numbers of borrowers to bankruptcy, there was also a shutdown of almost all lending for an extended period of time. Without lending, the bankruptcy attorney explained to me, there is nothing going into the funnel and, as a result, there will be less volume going to bankruptcy.
I believed him then and I’ve watched his wisdom play out as bankruptcy filings have definitely leveled off.
Credit offered to those considered subprime or risky
Debtors in bankruptcy cases have always wondered if they would ever get credit again after filing, and I believe it has always been true that high-interest credit cards and auto loans have been offered to these debtors (sometimes even as soon as they file). Those who receive a chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge are good ‘risks’ for lenders because they cannot file for a chapter 7 bankruptcy again for 8 years. So, unless a person could qualify for a chapter 13 bankruptcy, they could face 8 years of interest charges and late fees on loans they cannot repay and on which they will not be entitled to bankruptcy relief.
An article in the New York Times by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Tara Siegel Bernard, “Lenders Again Dealing Credit to Risky Clients,” highlights this trend by creditors to lend to debtors who have “just emerged from bankruptcy”. It’s not really a new trend, in my opinion, just one that has been on hold during the worst of the credit crisis. The authors present quotes from representatives of some of the biggest lenders and banks about their new lending strategies. But the authors also raise questions of whether these strategies are “preying” on what could be considered vulnerable borrowers and whether these lending practices might be just as risky as the pre-credit crisis practices.
The ‘funnel theory’ would say that new lending, whether to creditworthy or risky borrowers, will inevitably lead to more bankruptcy cases. But ‘inevitably’ is likely to be two to three years down the road.
This appears on the back of a recent customer statement of Toyota Financial Services (sorry for the hard-to-read image, but that’s what it looks like on the statement):
The Toyota addresses relating to bankruptcy, so you can read them, are these:
Toyota Financial Services, PO Box 8026, Cedar Rapids, IA, 52409-8026
Toyota Financial Services, Asset Protection Department, PO Box 2958, Torrance, CA 90509-2958
From the back of a recent statement of a Cap One customer is this notice answering the question, “What if I file for Bankruptcy?”
The address for Cap One is: Capital One, PO Box 30285, Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0285.
My aim is to prepare a mistake-free bankruptcy petition. As a virtual bankruptcy paralegal, I spend hours fine tuning the petition and schedules … asking questions of the attorney and clarifying details with the client.I don’t believe a “perfect” petition is possible (we’re all human after all), but I do have my routine topics that I always double-check with the client:
Because I work virtually, I am not present at the document signing appointment when the attorney will ask the client to review the documents and make sure the information is accurate and complete. It is a time-saver for my attorneys if I cover these content specific topics with the client prior the signing appointment. So I speak with the client by phone about what they should be looking for as they review the documents and I repeat it in the email message to which a draft of the petition is attached.
What do I ask them to do specifically? I ask them to please double-check their social security numbers. I ask this very emphatically.
I will tell them that there are several pages in the draft that will list creditors and ask the client to please make sure every creditor they can think of is listed. On this topic I’ll also interject that this means family, friends, neighbors, and every credit card. You’d be surprised how, even at this stage of the petition preparation, a client will say that they mentioned to the attorney that they were going to keep certain credit cards and the attorney said it was okay. (Note to self: alert the attorney that the client likely misunderstood a conversation.)
Finally, I suggest that the client(s) get a cup of coffee and read through every page of the draft looking for typos and checking for anything that needs to be added, deleted, or corrected. Most clients have never seen bankruptcy forms before and this will be their opportunity to (hopefully) read every word at their own pace. (This is where the memory seems to kick in — it’s amazing what clients remember when they read the actual forms.) I ask the client to send me any corrections, but I also let them know that I cannot answer legal questions that might come up and suggest they make a list of these questions to ask the attorney at their signing appointment.
At the signing appointment the attorney will ask again if the documents are complete and accurate and the client should be able answer pretty quickly because they will have already read the docs and worked through clerical corrections with me. The attorney’s time can be better spent on answering the legal questions about the case and, if the client prepared a list of questions, the client will know that all their questions were answered. Overall, the attorney should spend less time in this appointment because of the clerical review I have already completed with the client. (Of course, some corrections may result from the legal questions and issues raised at the signing appointment.)
Mistakes are bound to happen; it’s the avoidable or careless ones that I work hard to prevent. On the Bankruptcy Law Network, Attorney Däna Wilkinson recently posted: When Preparing for Bankruptcy, You Can’t Be Too Careful. It’s an interesting observation of how an avoidable mistake incurred the ire of the trustee. Fortunately, none of my attorneys have ever told me that they took a tongue-lashing from a bankruptcy trustee due to mistakes in our paperwork. Whew.
