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Help thread for choosing a BK lawyer?

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    Help thread for choosing a BK lawyer?

    Okay, this forum is awesome, and you guys are all great! So I am quite sure I just missed a thread about this and if so can someone direct me to it? I looked in the FAQ's and around several forums on the site, but to no avail.

    I live in NYC and the lawyers here seem pretty clueless, which is quite odd in a city as saavy as this one. Anyway, one lawyer tells me her fee would be about $2,000.00 plus the filing fee. I know nothing about lawyers for BK and have no idea if this is good or not, but it certainly sounds reasonable to me. While I want to save money, of course, I do not want to skimp on somethig so important and end up with some shoddy guy in a basement who will screw this all up, particularly the taxes part of it! You get what ya pay for, right? ;)

    Okay, so I talk to her. Her name is Irene, and her default position is that taxes are absolutely not discharged in any BK. Sooooo....I put on my most polite and discreet teacher's hat and ask her (with about as much humility as I can muster) to please check her facts. She still assures me that she is right, to which I say she is the lawyer not me, but that I have been researchhing ths for a while, and it is TOO IMPORTANT to me to just take one lawyer's word for it. I even conceded to her that all my info comes from the Internet, whch is a vast repository of disinformation, figring to "disarm" her a little.

    Anyway, after a conversation she agrees to look into the matter. She then calls me back and says that it is VERY HARD to do but that I was indeed correct. Then she gives me some nonsense speech about there being no fraud on any of those tax returns, to which I respond that of course there was no fraud as I have never even been audited! She then tells me something which makes no sense, that the burden of proof is on me.

    She asks me if I can PROVE there was no fraud!! At this point I'm like "are you kidding me? How can I possibly prove the negative of something I have never been accused of?"

    I asked her if she died her hair last year and she laughed and said no, to which I said, "prove it!" I then explained that you could not prove something like that because all you can do is say you filed accurately and turn over all your paperwork.

    Lucky for me I do happen to have ALL of my records for all the years I want to have the taxes discharge and can turn them over to anyone that wants to see what my expenses, gross collections, my PLLC filings, and whatever, but I certainly CANNOT prove I didn't commit fraud!

    On top of all that, she then tells me that I am in for a big fight to get the taxes discharged (you know, the ones she originally said could not be?) and that it would now cost me between four and five grand and there were no guarantees about the taxes!!

    Needless to say, I told her I would get back to her, which I have absolutely NO intenion of doing.

    Sorry for this long post, but I had to vent. Can someone please point me in the direction of a thread already in existence about finding a lawyer for this who is competitive in terms of price, very good at his or her job, and knowledgeable about taxes?

    Thank you!

    #2
    Lawyers are not discussed in the public forums, but sometimes recommendations are made via pm.

    In your situation, you should be looking for a lawyer that specializes in in high income, high-dollar bankruptcies. Not because you made a super high income, (I am not assuming either way ) but because of the complexities of your case regarding the taxes, etc. The ideal lawyer to look for in your case would be one that either handles irs litigation and bankruptcies or that handles both chapter 11 and chapter 7. Because you had a business, and because taxes are very difficult to get discharged, and because you are going to be filing your tax returns right before you file, you will need a lawyer that is used to working with the irs. There are many people in nyc in your situation and they typically go to firms that specialize in taxes and bankruptcy.

    If you do a google on tax bankruptcy new york city, you will come up with several. The run of the mill bankruptcy mill lawyers will not be of use to you in my opinion.
    You can't take a picture of this. It's already gone. ~~Nate, Six Feet Under

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      #3
      Good solid advice and well said!
      Filed Ch7 5/28/09 (Pro Se) Orlando, 341 7/01, UST selected case for audit 7/01, Last day for objection 8/31. Audit report filed 9/10, no material misstatements. Discharged and closed 9/22/2009

      Comment


        #4
        Thanks again, guys. Okay, since we're on the subject, what should I consider a baseline price in terms of overall attorney's fees, not counting the filing fee, of course? Obviously, I am not going to make this decision solely based on money, but what is too much to pay, what is so low I should be suspicious, and what would you say is kind of just about right in a city like Brooklyn?

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by NSH View Post
          Thanks again, guys. Okay, since we're on the subject, what should I consider a baseline price in terms of overall attorney's fees, not counting the filing fee, of course? Obviously, I am not going to make this decision solely based on money, but what is too much to pay, what is so low I should be suspicious, and what would you say is kind of just about right in a city like Brooklyn?
          The average price of a chapter 7 in nyc is $1,800-2000 or so. That would be for a bankruptcy mill type of lawyer. The starting price of a chapter 11 is around $20k. When I lived in nyc, I was contemplating chapter 13 because my income was too high for a chapter 7 even though I passed the means test, and my lawyer quoted me $3,500. I think your situation will be somewhere between the chapter 13 price and the chapter 11 price, with the price falling closer to a chapter 13 price.
          You can't take a picture of this. It's already gone. ~~Nate, Six Feet Under

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            #6
            What is it that would make mine more expensive than most of the people here filing? Is it because of the back taxes?

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by NSH View Post
              What is it that would make mine more expensive than most of the people here filing? Is it because of the back taxes?
              It is because of the back taxes, the sole-proprietorship, and the fact that you want to discharge taxes.
              You can't take a picture of this. It's already gone. ~~Nate, Six Feet Under

              Comment


                #8
                I almost missed this part:

                Originally posted by backtoschool View Post
                Lawyers are not discussed in the public forums, but sometimes recommendations are made via pm.
                Well if anyone has any suggestions or recommendations for NYC lawyers, please feel free to PM me, and you will have the thanks of a Grateful Debtor...er Jerry Garcia is turning over in his grave right now.

                Also, I see there are some lawyers in this thread. Just a heads up: I will NOT consider it SPAM if you want to contact me. Please feel free to shamelessly plug your firm in PM! It may help me narrow my search a little.

                Comment

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