More Debtors Going Bankruptcy Without Lawyer – Save on Bankruptcy Fees Using Petition Preparer
MORE DEBTORS GOING BANKRUPTCY WITHOUT LAWYER. SAVE ON BANKRUPT FEES, DO IT CHEAP.
It would probably not surprise too many of us today, given the current economic conditions in the nation and the long emerging national statistics that show that more and more Americans all across the country have been filing personal bankruptcy at astronomical levels. But a recent national random sample pulling made by one researcher about chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy cases filed by American debtors during the two month period of July and August of 2010, made this significant finding: namely, that overall, a little more than 1 out of every 9 cases (11.3%) filed in the American bankruptcy courts, were filed by the debtors themselves, WITHOUT using an attorney. In deed, the pulling, which was done by Professor Robert Lawless of the University of Illinois Law School, a well-known expert on bankruptcy and credit law, showed that the rate of non-attorney filings by debtors, was higher in chapter 13 cases (13.8%) than it was in chapter 7 (10.1%). In short, today more debtors are undergoing bankruptcy without lawyer.
An interesting piece of information, no doubt!
But note, though, that these specific figures are yet merely a “national average.” You should note that, though significant, this figure of 1 in 9 bankruptcy filings being done without an attorney, will probably not really strike many experts who are knowledgeable in the field as particularly dramatic or representative of the whole statistics. In deed, as Lawless himself pointed out, a fact long-established in bankruptcy administration has been that there are some court districts across the United States in which the rate of persons who file bankruptcy without a lawyer, is in fact as high as 30%. Or more! As in major urban areas, for example, such as California, New York city, etc. In such districts, debtors save on bankruptcy fees with petition preparer, as there is really no such thing as low-cost bankruptcy lawyer.
BUT WHAT DOES THIS DO TO THE LAWYERS’ ARGUMENT THAT BANKRUPTCY IS SO “COMPLEX, and Hence Requires and Justifies the Lawyers High Fees in Bankruptcy”?
Nevertheless, this current release of the Lawless survey is very significant. The Lawless survey which shows that nationwide at least a significant proportion of bankruptcy filers, some 1 out of 9 of them (and the findings by other data which show that up to 30% or more in certain larger urban court districts) do so without using attorney, immediately throws a big wrench in one basic argument of the organized bar and bankruptcy lawyers obviously engaged in the protection of their lucrative business of bankruptcy filings. A major favorite of bankruptcy lawyers and common argument often heard from them, is that probably the most important reason why the job of doing what is, essentially, a FINANCIAL business of bankruptcy filing, should be left solely to remain the exclusive preserve of “attorneys,” is that, according to them, the process involved in filing bankruptcy is a “complex” undertaking. According to them, doing bankruptcy work is unusually a forbidding task too difficult for anyone, except for the “highly skilled and educated” type, to do, and if you’re a debtor even with any thoughts whatsoever about doing bankruptcy yourself, maybe you had better re-thing that, for, they say, nothing could be more foolish or “risky” an undertaking for you to attempt! You simply, of course, should just hire an “attorney” to walk you through it like a baby, they say!
