Well, I went for another attorney consultation yesterday. This one charged me $250 even though it was for the initial consult.
This was only my second consultation because I was so bothered by the first one I had that it took me two months to find another one that I was willing to go see.
Most of the ones that I was able to find were "high voulme" bankruptcy attorneys... one attorney firms with offices in strip malls over the top of Chineese restaurants.
This attorney I found is part of a firm with 5 attorneys in a nice office in a nice location. Bankruptcy is only one of the services they offer and not the most common. The attorney I'm working with represents both debtors and creditors as well as Trustees. He is a past Trustee himself and knows most of the trustees and judges personally.
The first attorney I spoke with asked me two questions, "how much do you make" and "how much do you owe". Then said, forget a chapter 7, you'll have to do a chapter 13 with a $500-$750 per month payment. He never looked up my median income, he hadn't even asked what my expenses were. When we finally did get to expenses... he complained that most of my expenses were too high... for instance he said that my food budget should be around $500/month. Yeah, right... I have 4 kids. A $500/month budget wouldn't even pay for the mac N cheese.
Anyway, the new attorney interviewed me for nearly two hours, writing down everything into a prepared form that they use to organize bk information. During this interview, when I mentioned wanting to get a chapter 7 if at all possible... he said, "well, we need to get all the information first, then we'll be able to figure out what you qualify for and what I think we'll be able to get through the trustee and judge." Once we were done, he looked at everthing and said, well, I don't see any reason why you can't get a chapter 7. Nothing in your expenses is out of line (except he said $90/month for tivo/cable was too much). He said that in my inventory valuation that I valued most things too high if they were "average" items and not antiques or collectables or had something else that made them worth more than the average for similar used items.
He said he can't promise me that we can get a chapter 7, but that there shouldn't be a problem. He needs to go over the information in more detail and then will make a final determination. He said that, since he's been a trustee, knows the current trustees and represents some of the current trustees... what he does when putting together a bk filing is "put on his trustee hat" and think about "how can I get this guy" while looking through our filing. He said that he has had clients forced to convert to chapter 13... but not many and he didn't think we'd be in danger of that.
He also did say that my Yukon is going to have to go... he said he could probably get a reaffirmation on it past the judge... but that he wouldn't feel comfortable signing off on it due to the $670/month payment. So oh well, I can live with that even though it'll worry me having an older vehicle with a lot more miles which will be what I'm sure we'll end up with.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but this meeting was SOOOOOO much better than the other one I had... definitely worth the $250 fee... which applys towards the Chapter 7 fees if/when we retain him.
So, now we're going to stop paying all payments to the unsecured creditors so we can save up the cash to pay the retainer... and then file. I hope to file by the beginning of May. He told me that if we gave him a partial retainer... like another $300 in addition to the $250 I've already paid, he'd get started on getting the paperwork filled out (or rather the computer file built, since it's filed online, not via paper). And also that at that point he'd let us tell our creditors to call him instead of bugging us. his quote on the creditors, "Don't worry, no creditor can 'out rude' ME!"
I can't believe how much better I feel, just knowing that things can move forward and that I feel I have an attorney that will work for ME rather than take the easiest path.
This was only my second consultation because I was so bothered by the first one I had that it took me two months to find another one that I was willing to go see.
Most of the ones that I was able to find were "high voulme" bankruptcy attorneys... one attorney firms with offices in strip malls over the top of Chineese restaurants.
This attorney I found is part of a firm with 5 attorneys in a nice office in a nice location. Bankruptcy is only one of the services they offer and not the most common. The attorney I'm working with represents both debtors and creditors as well as Trustees. He is a past Trustee himself and knows most of the trustees and judges personally.
The first attorney I spoke with asked me two questions, "how much do you make" and "how much do you owe". Then said, forget a chapter 7, you'll have to do a chapter 13 with a $500-$750 per month payment. He never looked up my median income, he hadn't even asked what my expenses were. When we finally did get to expenses... he complained that most of my expenses were too high... for instance he said that my food budget should be around $500/month. Yeah, right... I have 4 kids. A $500/month budget wouldn't even pay for the mac N cheese.
Anyway, the new attorney interviewed me for nearly two hours, writing down everything into a prepared form that they use to organize bk information. During this interview, when I mentioned wanting to get a chapter 7 if at all possible... he said, "well, we need to get all the information first, then we'll be able to figure out what you qualify for and what I think we'll be able to get through the trustee and judge." Once we were done, he looked at everthing and said, well, I don't see any reason why you can't get a chapter 7. Nothing in your expenses is out of line (except he said $90/month for tivo/cable was too much). He said that in my inventory valuation that I valued most things too high if they were "average" items and not antiques or collectables or had something else that made them worth more than the average for similar used items.
He said he can't promise me that we can get a chapter 7, but that there shouldn't be a problem. He needs to go over the information in more detail and then will make a final determination. He said that, since he's been a trustee, knows the current trustees and represents some of the current trustees... what he does when putting together a bk filing is "put on his trustee hat" and think about "how can I get this guy" while looking through our filing. He said that he has had clients forced to convert to chapter 13... but not many and he didn't think we'd be in danger of that.
He also did say that my Yukon is going to have to go... he said he could probably get a reaffirmation on it past the judge... but that he wouldn't feel comfortable signing off on it due to the $670/month payment. So oh well, I can live with that even though it'll worry me having an older vehicle with a lot more miles which will be what I'm sure we'll end up with.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, but this meeting was SOOOOOO much better than the other one I had... definitely worth the $250 fee... which applys towards the Chapter 7 fees if/when we retain him.
So, now we're going to stop paying all payments to the unsecured creditors so we can save up the cash to pay the retainer... and then file. I hope to file by the beginning of May. He told me that if we gave him a partial retainer... like another $300 in addition to the $250 I've already paid, he'd get started on getting the paperwork filled out (or rather the computer file built, since it's filed online, not via paper). And also that at that point he'd let us tell our creditors to call him instead of bugging us. his quote on the creditors, "Don't worry, no creditor can 'out rude' ME!"
I can't believe how much better I feel, just knowing that things can move forward and that I feel I have an attorney that will work for ME rather than take the easiest path.
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