pro se?

[learnmore]

an atty does three things: offers advice (of varying quality, depending on the atty ), prepares the forms, and sits beside you at the 341 while YOU answer the trustee's questions

Thanks Daisy. This is exactly the way I feel about it. I don't see how I'd get my money's worth out of a lawyer when everything is pretty straightforward about my situation - no asset, no secured debts, easily pass income test... but I do have quite a bit of cash that I'll need to survive the bankruptcy. (I'm a full-time student.) Filing jointly with my wife on the Federal Exemptions, it's possible to keep nearly $24,000 in savings in the wildcard. My fear is that a pot like that will be a temping target on someone who could theoretically "afford" a lawyer but chose pro se...

[Priceless ProSe]

I'm considering Pro Se in Texas as well. After meeting with several attorneys, I'm convinced I can handle the filing...

... HOWEVER, I can't shake the fear that having "pro se" next to my name is going to mark me as an easy target for extra scrutiny from creditors and the trustee. I'm NOT trying to hide anything, but it just seems like it's too easy for creditors to pick on pro se filers with the threat of adversary proceeding.

I'd be really interested to see statistics on the percentage of objections to pro se cases versus professionally represented ones. Perhaps having a lawyer's signature on the case is alone with the $1500 - $2000 if it draws less attention.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

You know I had a similar thought about this also. One of our debts is a judgement from a few years ago thet was bought by an attorney. When I looked him up I found out that he specializes in messing up BKs and opposing motions to vacate post BK. We called him and had a talk. I explained to him that I am prepared and have nothing but time on my hands (small lie). I told him I would never settle with him and would drag any proceedings out as long as possible.
He hasnt filed any type of request/motion in my BK. I have changed my line of thought to, if I had a lawyer I couldnt afford to fight objections/opposition/motions and would have to either settle or give up. The lawyers time is valuable to them, and the banks arent going to pay a lawyer to mess with you on any small (relatively speaking) debts. If that lawyer ever starts something I am going to make him validate the debt, im gonna request all sorts of documentation, motions, i will keep him busy and there is no way he will want to chase me to heck and back for 2k.
The lawyer that I almost hired (but had no money to) told me that if there were objections he reccomends settling because it costs more to hire him to fight it than to pay the entire debt (in most cases). The more I think about this the better I feel about filing prose.

[FreshLikeADaisy]

Thanks Daisy. This is exactly the way I feel about it. I don't see how I'd get my money's worth out of a lawyer when everything is pretty straightforward about my situation - no asset, no secured debts, easily pass income test... but I do have quite a bit of cash that I'll need to survive the bankruptcy. (I'm a full-time student.) Filing jointly with my wife on the Federal Exemptions, it's possible to keep nearly $24,000 in savings in the wildcard. My fear is that a pot like that will be a temping target on someone who could theoretically "afford" a lawyer but chose pro se...

Hrmm... I see your point very clearly. And YES, that amount of cash would be a very tempting target for a salivating trustee. My concern would be a "totality of circumstances" argument from the trustee, as opposed to a direct challenge to that specific exemption. In other words, if Learnmore has that much in savings, why is he filing bk?

If I may ask, is the cash itself from a student loan, or somehow from some other exempt source? To be honest, you may be very well advised to wait on Ch7 until that cash is well-depleted, OR consider a Ch13 and convert to 7 whenever that cash runs out.

As far as getting an atty goes, I guess I'm contrary. The thing is that from where I sit -- and you have to evaluate this for yourself -- I care a damn sight more about anyone else about how my bk comes out, and if I have the ability **I** may actually be a much better risk than an atty I don't know. But you never know whether your ability is up to snuff until it is challenged, and it's this very challenge that you absolutely cannot afford to lose, so it's a roll of the dice. The particular trustee you draw has everything to do with a case like yours where there are assets dangling in front of his nose if only he can find a way to pick them, which makes it even more of a crapshoot. You can't possibly know who you will get until you actually file and get one.

I hope you've been reading back posts on this board, as many as you can, because that alone will give you a really good overview of the atty experiences possible, good and bad.

The other thing I will mention is this -- and do with it what you will -- even after I knew I had to go pro se, I still needed to find a good atty. Not to pay $$$ for representation, but whose cases I could pull off of PACER and use as examples, knowing they'd be correct. The first thing I did was to look through all the online bk blogs, like Bankruptcy Law Network (http://www.************************/) to see what attys in my area, if any, were actually posting, discussing, doing test cases, exploring the emerging issues of the new bk law. In other words, I figured one attribute of a really great attorney would be his/her love of the law and exploration thereof, not just churning average cases through the bk mill as a job. I found two whose articles/cases/blogs I really really liked, who -- to me -- seemed to demonstrate a knowledge and commitment to excellence, at least in what they were doing online. Again, they didn't have to be perfect, or even the very best, just really likely to be accurate, detailed, and correct in their knowledge and filings. I also located a few attys that skeeved me out, and noted their names as well.

PACER access at my district's federal courthouse is free, so I spent a couple of afternoons up there just searching all the cases of the two really good attys and the few really bad ones I had found. Interestingly enough, not only did I get my example cases with no problem at all, the specific atty's ratio of filings to dismissals told me all I needed to know!!!

I don't recommend doing this from the house -- searches and reports can get incredibly expensive even at $0.08 a page when you get hundreds of hits -- but PACER is free at many courthouses and even some schools, so check out those options. Whether you hire an atty or just use his cases as examples, it pays to find excellence.

Good luck!!!!

[ameliabedilia]

I went pro se and I too found it to be a definite sense of pride and accomplishment. I looked up several bk petitions on PACER and saved them to my hard drive. When I was unsure filling my forms out, I just looked at them. But do be careful with pacer- I ended up owing over $100! All worth it in the long run!

[Joe Farmer]

The three things the lawyer is supposed to do?

Except when he does NOT show up at the 341, and that seems commonplace in these posts! Point to ponder- a long form tax return is way more complex than a BK petition...If you do your own taxes it's a shoe-in to do your own petition.

[Tabbygirl]

Except when he does NOT show up at the 341, and that seems commonplace in these posts! Point to ponder- a long form tax return is way more complex than a BK petition...If you do your own taxes it's a shoe-in to do your own petition.

I do my own taxes, and in fact used to work for the treasury department (our federal friends with the 1040s...) and if I can help a guy with a garbage bag full of 1099s file self-employment taxes for the last 3 years....I think I can do the bk paperwork for my own case.

My husband thinks I'm nuts, but I also sold my house several years ago without a realtor (more paper), so I think I'm pretty competent. And, I figure if I get really stuck I can plead ignorance, start over and hire an attorney.

[BKParalegal]

As long as the schedules are filled out correctly and the appropriate exemptions are entered, that is 80% of the battle. There are some decent BK preparers out there that will prepare your petition for you to file Pro Se. I work for a large BK firm now, but for awhile I did prepare petitons for people and the industry usually charges $200 to $400 to prepare them. A lot of times, the paralegals that are preparing these for you pro se are the same paralegals who are doing it for the attorneys. They can't give legal advice and aren't suppose to coach you at all, but again, when I was doing them I knew what was going to fly with the trustees and what wouldn't.

Good Luck