I had done my free consultation with Tom over the phone, and really thought I was going in to hire him... well, he treated the appointment like it was the consultation, but he charges $150 for the half hour. If we end up hiring him that gets applied to his flat fee. Fair enough.
First, I was a little discouraged that he didn't even remember talking to me! I'm sure he's busy, but it's only been a week and we talked for like 45 minutes! So basically I had to start from scratch with him, so didn't get much new info.
What I did learn is that he is unaware of the law passed in 2006 that allows tithing! He said in his 20+ years, he's only had one case he can remember where the people tithed! What? He then said that he didn't believe any of the trustee's would allow tithing and that they would use it to push us into a Ch13, and then not allow us to tithe for 5 years. Arghh. He also said he would have to research this at the rate of $250/hr, and that if the trustee objects to it, we would have to pay $250/hr for him to respond to the objection. Ouch.
That also led to him saying that if there are any issues at all (random audit, UST audit, whatever) we would be billed at $250/hr for him to handle it. I don't know if this is standard procedure or not. It seems to me that handling questions from the Trustee or the random audit should be included? I understand that if a creditor files an objection, maybe that's different...
Off to do more research, and it looks like I'll be calling more attorneys today!