Did your lawyer "lose" anything

[canusaybroke]

So we filed on the 5th....Lawyer calls me today and says I need 3 months bank statements for such and such accounts (we have 7) I know for a fact I gave him everything and he is just overlooking it, he also tells me we need to get it in to the UST by the 14th......so I am leaving work early today to go to his office and dig through the papers myself......ugh...our lawyer is a good family friend, and has been doing this for 35+ years and all he does is BK's but it is so frustrating not to mention getting me anxious.....

[liz417]

Uh, I would be frustrated too! Is he charging you for your BK filing? If so, I would expect him to be professional and organized!

[ela805]

So we filed on the 5th....Lawyer calls me today and says I need 3 months bank statements for such and such accounts (we have 7) I know for a fact I gave him everything and he is just overlooking it, he also tells me we need to get it in to the UST by the 14th......so I am leaving work early today to go to his office and dig through the papers myself......ugh...our lawyer is a good family friend, and has been doing this for 35+ years and all he does is BK's but it is so frustrating not to mention getting me anxious.....

That sux. No my atty has never misplaced anything. I have had some not so good experiences dealing with family friends unfortunately. For some reason they tend to not be as professional with someone they know and love.

[Amy26]

My lawyer seems to be a bit "forgetful" as well. I have to keep watching over his shoulder... like I have an HSA account and initially he told me that we had to file that specially in the petition... then when we reviewed the petition there was nothing in there about the HSA... so I had to gently remind him about it and he is like oh... yes give me the info for it...which I had already emailed him the week before.

I didn't have to provide any additional bank statements other than my most current ones. He also didn't seem to concerned with keeping receipts etc...

Do all these rules and document requirements vary by district?

[liz417]

Are you over the Allowed Expenses? If so, yes, you'll need receipts, if not I wouldn't worry about it. If I were you, I would bring extra copies of bank statements (at least 6 months worth) and pay stubs, just in case the Trustee wants to look at them. I would hate to have my 341 rescheduled at a later date because I didn't have the info!

[AngelinaCat]

YES!!!! We submitted pay stubs and pay advices three or four separate times because our pre-BK situation kept changing. Long story there--too long for for a short answer here. Suffice it to say that each and every time we were asked for documentation, we submitted it, even though it became very embarrassing to go to the HR person at my former FT job several times asking for the same damned info.

So when 'Hub and I put our collective feet down and insisted that our dingbat lawyer file our case--which was on Dec 28, 2007, the last working day of the year--she had LOST yet ANOTHER portion of our file. She and her know-nothing assistant were busy scratching through all their paperwork to find our files--and she was MAD at us because we didn't have copies of our files WITH us. EXCUSE ME????? HOW MANY COPIES HAVE WE SENT YOU????!!!

I am sorry, OP, but you hit on one of my bad nerves, as 'Hub and I understand exactly where you are at.

I suggest doing a search on our nicknames: AngelinaCat, and AngelinaCatHub, and go back to where we joined this forum in April 2008, and read our posts from the beginning and see where we have come from--even to the point that we tried to fire our attorney.

My best and may God Bless~~~

[justbroke]

I'm all over my lawyer. There's nothing he does without me knowing. The day he misses a document and accuses me of not giving it him, is the day I go ballistic. They'll have to put me in an institution!

I agree that lawyers, and others, tend to lose documents. Maybe another question for your potential lawyer is... what document management system do you use? Do you scan/image all documents into a central system for your practice? (And no, Best Case is not such a system.)

All of my files are electronically maintained.

[Bell30656]

My lawyer was the most organized person I've ever encountered. I'm willing to be he has a checklist for how to put on and tie his shoes in the mornings. He had everything organized in exactly the order the trustee was going to ask for it and was ready with the next document before the trustee could ask.

I think it helped that he was filing these during the civil war... Well maybe not that far back but he may have known Lincoln when he was a boy.

[canusaybroke]

UPDATE.....after going to his office last night I found out why he thought they weren't there....our credit union statements use sub accounts to show savings and checking and he didnt see them.........whew......