couple of questions

[foolishman]

Why exactly does the court/trustee look down on you because you don't have an attorney represent you. They don't even say anything at the 341, so why do they go with you? Isn't is ultimately up to the trustee and court in regards to decisions to my bankruptcy? I guess I don't understand what the purpose is?

I have a drafting business, it is incorporated, but I haven't made any money with it in the last two years, and 3 years ago I made about $10K. My computer hard drive crashed with my excel sheet of my business checkbook. Hopefully I can get it back from wells fargo, can't I? I never really kept a "book" because I didn't have employees, etc.

[BassBoy]

My take on the attorney thing is that they are supposed to act in an ethical manner and they wouldn't let a client do something illegal. If you are filing alone, there is no one to really "vouch" for your information. Just my thoughts.

If your business is filing BK, then you should speak with a few attorneys. Almost all of our members are/or have filed personal BK, so you may not see many responses with respect to a business. We've have a few members though, so you may get some information, but limited.

[HHM]

Attorney's make the process run more smoothly. On average, a trustee has to spend more time dealing with pro se parties because the pro se parties are generally not aware of all the rules and procedures.

And this is true in any area of legal practice, attorney's hate dealing with unrepresented parties.

[no_it_all]

Generally, the trustee must spend more time with a case when there is an attorney involved. All Pro Se filers have simple cases. I was involved in two 341 meetings, each with about 18 cases. Those with an attorney spend considerably longer with the trustee.

[LostOne0069]

In addition to the excellent reasons that the others here have given you... I would say that not ALL of them will look down on you.

We filed pro-se and ours has been nothing but smooth sailing. At our 341 meeting the trustee spent 15 minutes afterwards just chatting with us about where we used to live and how we liked where we were living now... The only thing I can say that probably helped him to be so "nice" to us... is that we REALLY did our homework. Our petition was very professionally done and was WAY better filled out than the one that our idiot attorney was going to file... we had all of our exemptions cited with the appropriate code, we had all of our assets listed in detail, when the US trustee asked for information on our debts for the last 3 years, we had all documentation and sent him a file folder 8 inches thick with all documentation and very few missing statments (there were a couple months missing, but nothing significant) I think our trustee was pleased with us because we made him do so little work. Not that attorneys are all that great at this... but in general I'd imagine that the quality of submissions are better when coming from attorneys. When we filed ours, the clerk said, "Wow! this is the most organized and nicest petition I've seen in a long time!" That told us that our hard work and effort to be prepared had paid off.

I hate to say it, foolishman... but the govt is going to be singularly unsympothetic at your lack of documentation... the tax code REQUIRES documentation and doesn't care if you have employees or not... technically, you did have employees... yourself. If I were you, I'd start calling banks and reconstructing, in detail, as much of your records as you possibly can.

Good luck!