Employment with Federal Court after BK

[RickInMich]

My wife may have an opportunity to become employed for a job in a Federal District Court. We are due to be discharged next week, and she has an interview the week after that.

Does anyone know if having filed bankruptcy would prohibit her from working for the Federal Court system? The application does say employment is subject to background check and/or FBI fingerprint check. She obviously has no criminal background, not even a speeding ticket!! But is bankruptcy included in those types of checks? This employment is not in the same district we filed bankruptcy in. We would be moving out of state.

Just wondering if anyone here has become employed in the Federal court system or the Federal Government after bankruptcy.

[One Half Full]

I've had FBI background checks/clearances and have done a few things in my life which are "Iffy" not mentioning what. The worse that has ever happened is some additional questions. No biggie. I got the job. "Something" on your records does not automatically bar you from employment. If all the people who have had speeding tickets, gone bankrupt, or committed petty crimes were barred from working for the Government, we wouldn't have an ARMY.

[Flamingo]

Couple things here. They will do both a criminal and credit background check. In this day and age, all employers usually do both and you are so advised when you sign the job application. They cannot run one on you without your approval and signature. On the credit check, with your BK filed so recently it may not have all yet hit your credit reports so it may or may not be showing at this point. Secondly, the trick question here is if the job application asks whether or not one has filed bankruptcy. Some of them do and some of them don't - it is not an illegal question to ask. If she checks it No and they find out otherwise, not a good thing. Unless this job requires her to be in with financial handlings or having access to financial or related information/records/accounts, BK should not be an issue. If the job is related to the above, honesty is the best policy - bring it to the forefront to avoid having them find out about it later.

[coma]

My husband, who is in the ilitary, just had his top secret approved, and we were not even discharged when it came through. It is possible. You have to be honest, and an investigator came to see him and ask him questions about it, but it worked out. I received a secret when we were still in a 13. So depending on the position, it probably won't matter much.

[BKFLA]

My dad works for the federal government and said that they do credit checks on everyone in the office every 2-3 months since 2003. Not sure why, but he said that if something comes up, they ask the employees about it. I can't imagine why it's any of their business, but be ready for that. My husband couldn't apply for a gov job recently, because it explicitly stated that until a BK is discharged, he wouldn't be considered. But, I'm sure it's not the same for every position. Best of luck to her.

[TEW]

I retired from the federal government and as long as you tell them about the BK you’er fine.
I held a top secret clearance I know people that had BKs and I know comptroller types that had some bad stuff on their records. None of them lost their jobs. We did have people that where in divorces that would have their clearances pulls for a short time. They were just given something else to do until it blow over.
The job I had just before I retired I could spend about 25 mil of public money with one or 2 mouse clicks. No one ever ran a credit check on me. There is no need to you sign an ethics statement every year and list all investment and debt. If someone is running credit checks on people they have way to much time on their hands

[lrprn]

TEW, please don't pull up these old, inactive threads that have been inactive for more than a month or two. It's against our forum rules because these old threads can contain inaccurate information (bk case law is constantly evolving).

In this case, Rick (the original questioner) is long gone - his Ch 7 closed months ago - he won't see your answer. And other than Flamingo, everyone else who posted to this thread has moved on as well.

It's much better to start a new thread of your own when you have good information like this to share - thanks!