BK Lawyer Dragging His Feet

[flick2003]

I started the BK process over a year ago. It was my fault for not getting all info to the attorney right away( coming to grips with the finality of BK ), but all of the info requested of us is now in their hands. It has been almost 6 MONTHS and still no word on my case, despite calls to his assistant. They say we will get a call back but haven't heard in 2-3 weeks. Since they've already been paid in advance I'm getting pissed. I want to draft a strong letter stating my frustrations but don't want to aggravate the guy who is representing me in court.

Ideas?

[Drazil65]

Hi, forget the letter and go knock on their door. Don't leave until you have answers. Camp out there if you have to. No reason to have money in hand and not returning your calls. Good Luck!

[LadyInTheRed]

If you haven't already done so, you could also try calling and asking to speak to the attorney instead of talking to the assistant. If the attorney isn't available, ask the assistant to have the attorney return your call and ask when you can expect a call back. If you don't get a call back pretty quickly, then go camp out at their office.

You should not be afraid of aggrevating the attorney. You paid him to a do a job and have a right to expect him to do it. He knows that. If you pushing him to do his job aggravates him, let him be aggrevated.

[HHM]

Bad news...the attorney will need all new information. New pay stubs, new bank statements, etc.

Just sounds like your case fell through the cracks, it happens. You dragging your own feet didn't help, but it happens.

I would follow LadyInTheRed advice. Call the office and ask to speak to the attorney, however, if the attorney is not available (which is 99% certain) to talk to you when you call, ask for a "phone appointment", a set time that the attorney will call you back, and if that appointment is the next day or the day after, that is fine, but what you want is an event to go on the attorney's calender (hence the appointment), not just something listed on his to do list.

[annalynn]

Bad news...the attorney will need all new information. New pay stubs, new bank statements, etc.

Just sounds like your case fell through the cracks, it happens. You dragging your own feet didn't help, but it happens.

I would follow LadyInTheRed advice. Call the office and ask to speak to the attorney, however, if the attorney is not available (which is 99% certain) to talk to you when you call, ask for a "phone appointment", a set time that the attorney will call you back, and if that appointment is the next day or the day after, that is fine, but what you want is an event to go on the attorney's calender (hence the appointment), not just something listed on his to do list.

I had something similar happen---and it was just because one of the front office girls was confused.

I paid my money (entire amount up front--more than 1800 by Cashiers Check)--and then waited---and waited---and waited. Finally I emailed them (after months) and asked what do we need to do next to get things going? The secretary wrote me back saying (rather snottily) we can't do anything until you pay. I hit the roof Apparently she had taken my payment--and then put my file aside with those who were pending waiting for payment.

Once we had it straightened out--it all went without a hitch--and it actually went pretty quickly.

Anyway-I wouldn't draft a strong letter--it could just be a simple mistake. In my attorney's case--once they realized the error, they were right on top of it. Give them the benefit of the doubt if at all possible--after all they are supposed to be your advocate. My thought is--find out what is going on--and get them moving--but don't get adversarial if you don't have to.

[BKAttyMI]

From this side, I can tell you there is nothing more frustrating then having a client "trickle in" information that is needed for a petition. By the time the client brings in more needed information, the prior documents are already out of date. Going through and preparing then re-preparing a petition is very tedious and time consuming. If you have not provided NEW up to date information, you need to ask what updated info is needed for your petition, they should be able to tell you that pretty easily.