What does “Bankruptcy law” mean?
In general, it means we help people and businesses out of financial difficulty. But we don’t just file Bankruptcy. We help people experiencing many varying degrees and types of financial problems (both big and small)- and we have many ways to help.
To further explain, I'll start with how people get into financial trouble.
The reasons people get into financial trouble are as numerous as the stars in the sky. The main reasons are usually because of an unfortunate (usually uncontrollable) event such as the loss of a job/ loss of income, illness in the family, divorce, failed business or a failed/ bad investment. Right now the big reasons are COVID-related. We do sometimes meet with people who have always struggled financially or have been overspending and not budgeting or living within their means. However, we mostly see honest, average, hard-working people who just fell on hard times for one reason or another or just had a little bad luck. In the case of a business, it might have lost a big customer or had problems with a subcontractor or had to shut-down temporarily leading to loss of revenue. The person or business might have become overwhelmed with debt trying to recover from these things. The problems we see might range from someone with just one issue (such as needing to catch up child support) to a big corporation with many significant debts to reorganize.
How do we help?
We have a free consultation review to the history; where they are financially; then talk about options, including but not limited to:
Options outside of Bankruptcy, including debt settlement or a workout; budgeting adjustments; or a “do nothing” approach
Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
We talk about the various options in details, the pros and cons, the costs involved and our suggestions/ recommendations.
We also talk about the goals we set which are: Get out of financial mess, Stay out of financial mess, Have regular credit again, and Have a vision of a successful financial future.
We advise on a lot of different financial matters including:
- What to do if a lawsuit has been filed
- How to avoid a judgment
- Whether to file Bankruptcy (or if a workout of debt settlement is best)
- What to do if a car has been repossessed
- What to do if a house is going into foreclosure
- What to do if wages have been garnished or a bank account levied/ setoff
- What to do if identity has been stolen or a creditor is making a false claim on a credit report
- How to prevent the above and more (landlord/ lease issues, student loan advice, how to budget, etc)
We also offer protection. It is a little scary when someone is experiencing financial difficulty. Creditors might be making harassing phone calls or sending threatening letters. It is easy for creditors to take advantage that someone might not know all of their rights and protections. They might require paperwork that is not in someone's best interest, such as a Confession of Judgment. There are also a lot of scammers out there pretending to be creditors/ debt collection companies; and they can try to steal someone's identity, among other issues. We can help with these problems.
We can also talk about avoiding possible future financial issues, asset protection and budgeting. For example, if someone is not in serious financial trouble right now but can foresee some problems coming in the future (the "writing is on the wall"), we can give advice on what to do. By the way, the best time to come to us is actually before someone starts having serious financial problems so we can hopefully help prevent bigger problems down the road.
We practice what we consider a very rewarding area of law. We give hope to the hopeless and give people a fresh start and peace of mind. If we can't help, we can lead them in the right direction or try to send them to someone who can. It is a blessing and an honor to be able to help and serve others and have them trust us in their time of need.