Bankruptcy and Consumer Protection Attorneys
BANKRUPTCY AND DEBT RELIEF
Bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which a person who cannot pay his or her bills can get a fresh financial start. The right to file for bankruptcy is provided by federal law, and all bankruptcy cases are handled in federal court. Filing bankruptcy immediately stops all of your creditors from seeking to collect debts from you, at least until your debts are sorted out according to the law.
Bankruptcy may make it possible for you to:
- Eliminate the legal obligation to pay most or all of your debts. This is called a âÂÂdischargeâ of debts. It is designed to give you a fresh financial start.
- Stop foreclosure on your house or mobile home and allow you an opportunity to catch up on missed payments. (Bankruptcy does not, however, automatically eliminate mortgages and other liens on your property without payment.)
- Prevent repossession of a car or other property, or force the creditor to return property even after it has been repossessed.
- Stop wage garnishment, debt collection harassment, and similar creditor actions to collect a debt.
- Restore or prevent termination of utility service.
- Allow you to challenge the claims of creditors who have committed fraud or who are otherwise trying to collect more than you really owe.
Our office has helped many people, both consumers and businesses, to sucessfully navigate the bankruptcy world and get that fresh start they needed. In most cases, we offer an in-person evaluation at no cost to you that will help you understand your options and give you a really good idea of exactly what your case would look like. It is common for our clients to comment about how they never felt lost or out of control during their case.
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BANKRUPTCY LITIGATION
A significant amount of the legal work done by our firm is in bankruptcy matters-- and a large percentage of that is litigation related. Our office is not a "mill", and Michael has been an attorney for almost 20 years. We take extraordinary steps to make sure that our clients are comfortable with what's going on, and that they are never unsure of what will happen. For example, we do not charge for the initial consultation, and we usually take about and hour and half to thoroughly sort through their issues and explain the process for each potential course of action.
If you have a need for Bankruptcy Litigation assistance, our firm is one of the few that does substantial Adversial Proceeding ("AP") work. At any given time, we usually have several APs that we are working. Regardless of whether you have a creditor case or a debtor case, our office has handled both kinds of cases and do so regularly. Bankruptcy adversarial cases are specialized cases with unique proof elements, and we have litigated several of them for both debtors and creditors. Typically, our cases are equally split between creditors and debtors, with perhaps a slight advantage to debtors.
You should also be aware that we are sometimes hired by people to try and salvage an AP case that a non-bankruptcy litigator attempted to handle at first. This is not a good place to be, and I'd suggest that you not pick your bankruptcy litigation counsel based only on their pricing. We liken it to surgery: a general practitioner M.D. might be able to do minor surgery after taking a class on it in med-school, but you are almost certainly better off with a real surgeon. This is true even though the general practitioner would probably be cheaper (initially).
Even if you don't end up chosing our firm, you really should restrict your search to true bankruptcy litigators. Honestly, the number of bankruptcy litigators is pretty small, and we usually find ourselves working with one another frequently.
We would be happy to consult with you, as a free consultation, and completely explain to you your options-- normally at no cost.