Is this normal? I got a huge packet in the mail from the lawyer's office.

[butterflywings]

Like 40 pages! Why am I having to fill this out?

I don't understand! I thought the lawyer was going to enter the information on the computer I give him when I go there on the 12th. I thought he would enter my info on the computer, and then the paralegal would type up everything when it was all completed.

So if I am filling out all of these freaking pages, what is exactly the lawyer's job? Besides being my legal representation, doesn't he do ANY of the legwork? Because this looks pretty darned lazy to me. I don't mind doing this, even if it sounds like I do, lol. It's just that I am paying this guy $1200 which is the high end for our area, so I expected him to do a little of the leg work in this.

It looks to me like on the 12th he's just going to talk to me, flip through the pages, ask questions, then shake my hand drop it on the paralegal's desk and then that's it.

I picked this office because of Pacer. They were the only law firm exempting tax refunds and putting the filer's percentage due of the refund which is important to me, and they always made sure that their clients had no disposable income plus they appear to have a good working relationship with the trustee. The paralegal said the trustee is "very very fair when it comes to tax refunds". She was actually glowing about him and how nice he is. (ok so maybe ive changed my mind on how trustees getting along with your lawyer can be a good thing and does matter )

However, this packet is going to take forever to file. Has anyone else who's filed, is having to fill out 30-40 pages before going in to the lawyer's office to file and pay, typical?

[Minnymouth]

LOL, LOL, We ALL have filled out the "famous petition".........

Yes, you fill out the paperwork with your information (only you know it)...........THEN the attorney has a conference with you to go over the petition.

He then types it up (or gives it to his paralegal, lol) to do.

He then calls you back in to sign everything. He then files it with the Court.

If it sounds like he doesn't do much...........well, most of them don't if they have paralegals. But they do (or are supposed to) look over the paralegals work before filing it......

Your attorney goes with you to the 341 meetings. He confers with the Trustee if there are any problems or questions regarding your petition.

Yes, $1200 sounds like a lot...... but considering some attorneys charge $200-$500 an hour $1200 seems reasonable.

In his fee is conference with you, going over petition with and without you, typing petition, conference with you to sign petition, trip to court house to file petition, and trip to 341 meeting with you. And all phone calls that might be involved in your case......

Unfortunately...... most of us are in the wrong profession we discover when it come to how much someone charges for their services.....

So jump in, get that packet filled out and back to the attorney and let him "do his thing"......

In some states it could have cost you more than that......

Welcome to our world!!!

[Lindsay]

Our lawyer gave us a huge packet to fill out too. I think that the paralegal will probably copy it onto the actual petition after we return it to him. I think the lawyer discusses the initial case with you and represents you at the 341 and the paralegal does all the other stuff.

Our lawyer met with us and we actually retained him prior to him giving us the packet though. He went through the packet at the meeting and marked which things that he wanted filled out on it. Did you actually meet him yet?

I didn't check our lawyer out on PACER at all, but he told us that he could exempt our tax refund in lieu of homestead exemption. I'm not sure what part of New York you are in and how the trustees are in your district. When are you planning on filing for your tax refund and actually retaining the lawyer? We already filed for our refund and will use some of it to pay off the rest of the lawyer fees and spend the rest catching up on overdue bills/essentials before we file the Chapter 7. It will probably be March before we actually file.

[my4devils]

Different experience here.....Our lawyer only gave us 3 forms to fill out- his own versions. One is an itemization of all of our stuff, one is a budget sheet and the third is a checklist of what to bring to meeting, i.e. pay stubs, taxes, creditor list, etc... We have scheduled a 3 hour meeting with the attny and the paralegal to sit down together and fill everything out. I would be lost if I had to fill out all of the forms all on my own. For what its worth- our fees are 1500 (includes pre/post counseling which we also do during the meeting on the computer in his office) plus the filing fee.

[woeisme]

my lawyer only wanted a single form filled out (although i had so many creditors I had to make a second page to attach to it!). He also gave us a list of things to bring to our signing meeting, and wouldn't meet with us to do all the paperwork until 1) we had paid the upfront part of the fee and 2)we had our certificate from our debt counseling class. Then when we went to our signing meeting, our lawyer swapped us out for another attorney in the firm so this new lawyer did all the paperwork with us. She typed it into her computer as we went through the documents we brought. Since then I only get her assistant on the phone, but I looked her up and she's also a lawyer, must be fresh out of law school I guess, but has passed the bar exam so I was really surprised because I figured she was a paralegal since she's my attorney's assistant. But our lawyer spent a good hour to 90 minutes at the signing session working with us, and she made suggestions for the budget that really helped make the CH 13 liveable, so I'm not complaining. Total cost was $3000, probably saved us about 35-40K over the 5 years of our plan compared to what the other guy in her firm initially projected our payment to be, so I'm very happy with her so far!

[monkatom]

My lawyer had me fill out about a 20 page packet that included curtrent income decutions for the schedule j etc. The one thing i noticed he did was lump household goods into categories, ie clothes, furniture, art, etc. He has not asked for itemized assets like 4 couches, etc and is almost done with teh paperwork. Should we have itemized all our stuff??