Anyone used a trustee as your atty?

[ssmdem]

My husband was at a friend's house today and mentioned off hand that we may be losing our house. In the conversation, it came up that he and his wife had actually filed a few years ago and he recommended his attorney. When my husband told me the name, I recognized the name as one of the trustee's in our area. He said his friend found that out after that fact because he questioned her why there case went so incredibly smoothly, while the people in front of them were hounded to death with questions. She told him the case in front of them was more complicated, but it also "helps that I'm a trustee as well." I found her website, and she offers free consultations with no mention on her website about her being a trustee as well. I certainly don't mind going to talk to her in the free consultation but a little nervous about freely giving a trustee all of our information in the event we decide NOT to use her and Murphy's law ends up placing us in front of her as the trustee. Any opinions?

[tigergem]

I would ask when her birthday is. If she is an Aquarian, then you can be fairly well assured she will have no trouble with cold hard impartiality. ;-)

Just kidding.

All joking aside, I would come up a zillion different ways to ask how she can represent you effectively when her "side job" is to represent the interest of the creditors. My big questions would be, how is there no conflict of interest on her part? If there are sufficient assurances of that, then I would think her expertise would be a definite asset to your case.

[LadyInTheRed]

I would suspect that if you don't hire her after a consultation, she would be disqualified from acting as trustee in your case. Call her office and ask. You don't have to tell them who you are.

[ssmdem]

Yeh, I've got SOME questions that I'm just not asking her and saving for the other attorneys I'm interviewing - just in case. It does make me nervous, but our friends LOVED her, said she was very thorough and they had ZERO problems. He said at the 341, he was really getting nervous because they were asking others LOTS of things. It came their turn, and he asked the standard, name, anything changed since filing, etc., looked at the papers for a little bit, and then just said, "okay" and moved on to the next person.

[ssmdem]

I would suspect that if you don't hire her after a consultation, she would be disqualified from acting as trustee in your case. Call her office and ask. You don't have to tell them who you are.

Now that's a good idea -- thanks, will do that.

[lrprn]

It's actually very common for active trustees to take on private consumer cases as well to increase their income. There's nothing underhanded about it. When their trustee hat is on, they fight for creditors. When their consumer bk lawyer hat is on, they fight for you.

Trustees who also do private cases are some of the best bk lawyers to have because they know *everything* there is to know about how your local court, local judge, and bk district rule on specific troublesome financial situations. If you have a free iinitial interview with this trustee and you like what you hear, I would snap her up in a heartbeat!

[gmk]

My attorney is a trustee. He came very highly recommended by other attorneys that I have some acquaintance with.

I tend to agree with lrprn in that they pretty much should know exactly what works - what doesn't in your district.

One thing I've found is that I believe he is a little more conservative in some things but on issues where I thought some issues may come up he has been very "this is how it will go down, I'm a trustee" Very confident in his assessments.

I also got the sense that a trustee, representing a client, may have an established rapport with the US Trustee and possibly even his trustee colleagues. When we finalized the petition as an over median filer, he commented that it may trigger a call from the US trustee, maybe not, but he wouldn't be suprised if it did. If so, he said he'll deal with it. Once again a great deal of confidence. I felt pretty good about that.

I'll know more after our 341 in few weeks, but if you're looking for someone who should know the system I'd go for it.

[ssmdem]

We're under the median income - not sure with expenses if we'll still come out okay as we only have a car payment as we're surrendering the house, but it looks close by my figures. Just not sure if I'm doing everything right. We've got a meeting on the 13th already with who I really thought I would go with -- but can't file for another few months anyway to let the truer picture of our income be used, so I'm going to wait until we're closer to filing and then go and see her and see how she sounds. I really think we're not an unusual case -- may possibly be an asset case if my husband can't get this motorcycle sold SOON, but if he can't, they can have it if it puts us over on exemptions. So she may just be the way to go - especially if it keeps me from worrying more. I'm such a control freak - and the unknown factor of all of this is driving me insane!

[tigergem]

From one control freak to another, I think I would be inclined to go with the trustee/attorney. Just my thoughts, having seen what the stress of having an attorney can do to a person. I think you would be better off. It might not go exactly as you would like, but I am sure you can count on it being fair, and hopefully timely and appropriate responses filed to any questions that arise without lots of prodding on your part...and not getting a call or an email back while you are stressing about a notice that you don't understand...

[angles]

We are working with an attorney who is on the board of trustees and came highly recommended from two different sources. He is currently working on a draft of our petition for us to review and so far seems knowledgeable.