And even more interesting?

[SamanthaJones]

25% of bankruptcies are filed WITHOUT a lawyer.
That's like 300,000 cases a YEAR for those of you that have the wherewithal to go it alone. (They say it's about the difficulty of filing your own taxes, and about the same percent fof the general population file their own taxes).

[freshstart2006]

I filed without a lawyer... and I do my own taxes. I don't think either were difficult to do alone.

[jenrw74]

You would think that there would be a much higher percentage doing their own taxes nowadays with the ridiculous-easy online software like TurboTax, etc. I've been breezing thru my taxes on there for years and I'm no accountant by any means, LOL. The customer service reps are very helpful when u have a question too. I'm not sure about pro se bankruptcy though. I'd be scared I'd really screw something up!! Especially since I did a 13. I was too scared to try that.

[manglicmot]

I wasn't too scared to file pro se, it's mostly a matter of the odds. Most dismissed cases are pro se filers. Also, the particular lawyer I hired is a BK specialist, he's high profile, he does seminars with BK judges and has a couple of radio shows. I feel better with him behind me because he is well known in the BK legal process. If something does go wrong, my attorney and the BK judge are drinking buddies - advantage me.

[jenrw74]

Also, the particular lawyer I hired is a BK specialist, he's high profile, he does seminars with BK judges and has a couple of radio shows. I feel better with him behind me because he is well known in the BK legal process. If something does go wrong, my attorney and the BK judge are drinking buddies - advantage me.

I feel like we have the same attorney! That describes mine perfectly. In my area, his firm is the one with all the ads on TV and newspapers. At our 341 meeting, in the room we were waiting in before the hearing room, a group of attorneys were all joking about how 'famous' he's gotten. It was comical. I kinda felt special. LOL. He was representing over half of the cases on the docket for that day!! A very busy guy.

[SinkingFast]

After a bunch of research, I felt like I coulda filled out the forms myself. We file our own taxes, and the BK paperwork looked about the same level of difficulty. But coming in under New Law, using Out of State Exemptions, in a strange, new State, we felt our odds of success were better with a well respected attny.

Our attny is actually a Creditor's Rights attny who does a few BK's/mo on the side. He's also drinking/golfing buddies with the Trustee.

Except for our stupid "yo-yo" income tax returns the last couple of years before we filed BK, we didn't have an issue. Thank Goodness!!