My 2nd attorney interview - I'm still looking!

[PaKettle]

My 2nd interview was with Kathleen P. March, who has a big internet presence, reviewed highly at martindale.com, and a former trustee.

I called up and I was told "free phone consultation only", no in-person consultations. This was disappointing as the office was only a couple miles away and I prefer to go in and see the people, see the office, etc..

So a paralegal took my info over the phone. She had a long list of questions some of which seemed odd, such as "Do I have a prenuptial agreement with my wife?" But mostly they were about income and amounts owed and how many cards and so on.

She asked me to hold after taking all the info and said she'd run it by the attorney and get back to me. About 2 minutes later she came back and said that we should be fine for CH. 7 and better to file now as opposed to waiting the 3 months after I bought the tv and made a couple small transfers, the reason being that my wife's unemployment benefits are ending right now.

BUT, and this is a BIG BUTT... She then told me the price:
FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS!

I said, "Holy moly! I had no idea it was going to cost that much! She said, "Well, you can pay it in 3 payments... but of course we don't file until we are paid." I said, "But it would take us 9 months to save up $4000, the way things are now... So we'll have to look elsewhere. But thanks for your time."

So I'm back to square 1.

I have one more attorney who was referred to me by someone on the net, but other than that I guess I'll be hitting the phone book or just other internet sites that list attorneys but don't review them.

Isn't $4k an awful lot to charge for a husband/wife bankruptcy? My friend who's a criminal attorney (but doesn't know anyone to refer me to - he practices in another state), says that that would be okay for a Business bankruptcy but is very high for a personal bankruptcy.

Apparently her background as a trustee and her internet presence gets her top dollar for her services! Jeez, at those prices, I'd need to take out a loan to file bankrtupcy!

[lrprn]

Isn't $4k an awful lot to charge for a husband/wife bankruptcy?

Yes. $4K is very high for a Ch 7 bankruptcy. Sounds like your trustee/lawyer is cashing in on her bk fame.

At least you got some valuable information from the call, Pa. - that's never a waste of time. Keep on interviewing bk lawyers in your area. Ask them the tougher questions related to your case and see how they handle them. Get a sense for who you think you can work with. If you've done your homework ahead of time to find out as much as bankruptcy as you can, after a few more interviews, it gets easier to sort out the better lawyers from the clinkers.

At some point you'll have to make a leap of faith about who to retain....we all have.

[SinkingFast]

We paid more than the normal attny fee for our area.

Our attny simply charges more to start. Other attnys charge $700-$1K for a simple, No Asset Ch 7. Our attny charges $1250 for the same service.

We paid $2K for our attny fee. Basically, an extra 3 hours of billable time. BUT, I didn't feel too bad about that. Our attny did have to research out of State Exemptions and make sure they were applied properly.

But $4K??!! That's just down right ridiculous!!

[BurgerKingVII]

$4K is quite high for a straightforward personal BK7. While I have no firsthand knowledge of her work, I did look at her website, and her credentials are stellar... Yale Law School, member of Yale's flagship law review ("making law review" is an honor at any law school), federal district court clerkship in the Southern District of New York (which includes NYC), passed what are considered the hardest bar exams in the U.S. (CA & NY), a few years at a major NYC law firm, and 14 years as a bankruptcy judge... that's very impressive. Add in the fact that she's practicing in L.A., and I'm not surprised she charges top dollar.

Also, I noticed that she does creditor-side BK work. That suggests she's able to be more selective when it comes to representing debtors.

For the most part, I don't believe in price-shopping for an attorney, especially for a BK matter. But paying for a lawyer with a resume like that might be overkill for a simple BK7, especially if it'd take nine months to save up the money to pay her. Now, if you were a major corporation needing to file BK11, well, that'd be a different situation.

[JRScott]

That is kinda high, probably cashing in on their fame as you suspect.

Keep looking , Hope you find a good affordable one soon

[PaKettle]

$4K is quite high for a straightforward personal BK7. While I have no firsthand knowledge of her work, I did look at her website, and her credentials are stellar... Yale Law School, member of Yale's flagship law review ("making law review" is an honor at any law school), federal district court clerkship in the Southern District of New York (which includes NYC), passed what are considered the hardest bar exams in the U.S. (CA & NY), a few years at a major NYC law firm, and 14 years as a bankruptcy judge... that's very impressive. Add in the fact that she's practicing in L.A., and I'm not surprised she charges top dollar.

Also, I noticed that she does creditor-side BK work. That suggests she's able to be more selective when it comes to representing debtors.

For the most part, I don't believe in price-shopping for an attorney, especially for a BK matter. But paying for a lawyer with a resume like that might be overkill for a simple BK7, especially if it'd take nine months to save up the money to pay her. Now, if you were a major corporation needing to file BK11, well, that'd be a different situation.

I agree with you - if I were doing a complicated 13 or an 11 it might be worth it to pay extra. But for a more or less straightforward 7 (we own no property, no secured creditors, etc) I think that it is overkill to pay that much extra for her credentials!

Thanks to all for confirming what I already thought: Her price is way to high and I should keep looking!