Where To FInd a Good Lawyer

[mommyto3+1]

I live in SE Michigan and am going to start looking for a lawyer but am wondering if someone could give me some tips where to start looking. Also what are the fees if any for the initial appt.?

Thanks

C.

[JollyGG]

This thread started by PaKettal has alot of good advice on different ways to find a lawyer.

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=16068

this thread also has some good ideas

http://www.bankruptcyforum.com/showthread.php?t=11519

They recomend everything from where to go for a recomendation, how to find an attorney who is also a trustee, to sitting in on an afternoons 341 meetings, to searches on PACER.

[mommyto3+1]

Thank you

[PaKettle]

Here's a thread from the recent past on (my opinion on) how to interview an attorney and a link one one place to look for one:

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=21810

(see the post of mine towards the bottom)

[JollyGG]

I also wanted to make one more point about a good lawyer.

I see people on these boards just livid at their lawyer for one mistake or another. We seem to feel that our lawyer should be infaluable and never make mistakes.

I don't consider it that way. My lawyer only has the information I gave him to go on. In our case we gave our lawyer tons of paperwork. On file he has six months of cc statements or more, four years of tax returns, Our other bills to verify our expenses, Our budget, our list of assets, valuations of our home and cars and a million other pieces of paper. I know my situation inside and out because I live it. He did not. If he misses something, well that often happens.

As long as all of our issues are resolved and don't significantly effect my case. I don't care. My made several mistakes. He missed listing my kids on schedule I, but listed my accurate family on B22, our homeowners insurance was listed twice in our Schedule J, Our life insurance was listed in Schedule J but wasn't marked in Schedule B, and he forgot to bring our income tax return to the 341 meeting.

But, you know what - we are dishcarged and closed, really without incident. There were bumps in the road, but my lawyer was able to smooth most of them out. That is what I paid him for. I paid for legal advice and feel I got very good representation.

So choose someone who you trust, feel good about, and belive will concientiously do the best job on your case. But if bumps in the road happen. Well they happen. Sometimes they would have happened with a different lawyer as well. As long as their mistakes don't jepardize your fresh start all is good. Amendments are easy to do. We did several. I to fix the listed mistakes, one to add a creditor, and one to claim a few exemptions after the trustee went after a few unexpected assets (earned, but unpaid income).

In the end we got what we wanted - our fresh start.

[Cali]

If the attorney makes a small number of mistakes, they are still considered good to me.

[deafbroke]

Go to bankruptcy court you will be filing at. Go to floor where the 341 meetings are held. There should be a list with all the 341's for the day with persons names and their attorneys names on it.

DB

[PaKettle]

I also wanted to make one more point about a good lawyer.

I see people on these boards just livid at their lawyer for one mistake or another. We seem to feel that our lawyer should be infaluable and never make mistakes.

I don't consider it that way. My lawyer only has the information I gave him to go on. In our case we gave our lawyer tons of paperwork. On file he has six months of cc statements or more, four years of tax returns, Our other bills to verify our expenses, Our budget, our list of assets, valuations of our home and cars and a million other pieces of paper. I know my situation inside and out because I live it. He did not. If he misses something, well that often happens.

As long as all of our issues are resolved and don't significantly effect my case. I don't care. My made several mistakes. He missed listing my kids on schedule I, but listed my accurate family on B22, our homeowners insurance was listed twice in our Schedule J, Our life insurance was listed in Schedule J but wasn't marked in Schedule B, and he forgot to bring our income tax return to the 341 meeting.

But, you know what - we are dishcarged and closed, really without incident. There were bumps in the road, but my lawyer was able to smooth most of them out. That is what I paid him for. I paid for legal advice and feel I got very good representation.

So choose someone who you trust, feel good about, and belive will concientiously do the best job on your case. But if bumps in the road happen. Well they happen. Sometimes they would have happened with a different lawyer as well. As long as their mistakes don't jepardize your fresh start all is good. Amendments are easy to do. We did several. I to fix the listed mistakes, one to add a creditor, and one to claim a few exemptions after the trustee went after a few unexpected assets (earned, but unpaid income).

In the end we got what we wanted - our fresh start.

I somewhat disagree. Yes, they are allowed to make mistakes, they should not be expected to be perfect.

But if they make several mistakes on a petition and any of those affect the case (like our's was affected because his checking the wrong box caused the UST to get involved, causing us extra stress),then that is just sloppy work.

Also, an attorney who does not return calls for 4-5 days is not a good attorney in my opinion, especially when the call is not just a random question but involves something like re-submitting a petition.

So even though our bankruptcy worked out, we got our discharge, I still would not consider our attorney a good one nor recommend him to anyone.

There is "sufficient" or "marginal" and then there is "good". An attorney doing banruptcy should have a knack for detail as well as "knowing the law". If he doesn't then he can't be a "Good" bk attorney in my opinion. He also should return calls in a timely manner, and be willing to occasionally answer stupid questions without being a jerk about it.