How Long Will An Attorney Wait?

[KYgirl]

My husband and I are still waiting for more medical bills to come in. We are going to file for a chapter # 7. We stopped paying our CC's this month, January. We've had some calls requesting payments.

We have yet to pick out our attorney.

My question is this:

When we go to the attorney, do we need everything in order to file right then and there? Will the attorney let us add other bills as they come in? What would the attorney's cut off time be for adding, if it can be done?

Sorry for being so naive, but these are things that have been bothering me.

[keepmine]

You can add additional bills up until your filing date. If you forget a bill after you file, the petition can be amended.Debts incured after the filing date are post petition and can't be discharged.

[HHM]

The attorney will (should) help you establish a timeline for filing. The bargain basements attorneys will probably not want to wait, but your average conscientious attorney should help with a strategy for filing and will wait the appropriate amount of time. But I would say that most attorneys would not want a case lingering in their office for more than 6 months (unless you needed that long or more to pay the fee).

[Trixie007]

When I was doing consults, I had attorneys tell me that they've had clients retain them and then advised them to wait a year to file! Then the clients make monthly payments until the filing date and they just wait it out, but that makes it so people can ask questions and get the attorneys advice as they get closer to filing. I'm guessing though that they may have you wait on some of the paperwork (or submit new lists later on), such as your list of creditors, until closer to your filing date.