What were your meetings like with your attorney pre-filing?

[anonymuse]

Just wonder what the "norm" is...

1. Had free consult--guy was very generous with his time and answered every little question I had.

2. Signed retainer. Paralegal gave me a bunch of paperwork to fill out and asked for the basics (copies of tax returns and paystubs). Told me to note any questions. Told me I'm basically on the "honor system."

3. When done with paperwork, will drop off with paralegal (and pay second payment.)

4. Will meet with lawyer to review and sign (and pay third payment.)

5. 341 Meeting.

It just seems that with the new laws, attornies would be more "hands on" wanting to verify things since they have to sign off on its accuracy.

Is this pretty much how it worked (or is working) for you?

EDIT: I'm not asking what the free consult was like. I'm asking how you worked with the paralegal & lawyer before you filed your papers.

[SinkingFast]

We'd had a couple of phone Consults with our attny's office. First with his paralegal, and then with the attny. Both chats were over an hour long. The attny ended with saying, "Get your tax issues resolved and then come and see me." As it turned out, that's how it worked out. We tromped around all over the place chatting with other attnys before we wound up in our attnys office. And he's the one we hired.

We had been compiling our paperwork for a couple of months by the time we went for that Consult. So when the paralegal came in with her checklist, we handed over almost everything she needed. Jotted notes for the few more docs and I spent the next day gathering those and got them turned in that afternoon.

The paralegal told us it would probably take a couple of weeks to get our petition prepped. She musta been thinking a local filing. We had to use outa State exemptions. It took extra time to research and apply the exemptions correctly. Then the paralegal was gone on vacation 3rd week in April, so it was beginning to mid-May before the rough draft of our petition was prepped for the attny to review. By then, we were moving, so everything's on hold awaiting our new monthly expenses.

The paralegal took all our original docs and scanned them into their computer system. We have since gotten our originals back. I could tell in looking thru them, that the paralegal did some investigating. There are check marks and notes jotted here and there.

There are attnys who aren't being so thorough tho. I know it. We met with one who said if we left our docs with him that afternoon, he'd have our petition ready the next day. He wanted us to go Ch 13 and we pushed for Ch 7. He relented to go Ch 7. So I'm guessing he woulda made some sort of "mistake" in our filing that would have caused us to have to either ammend our original petition, resubmit, or convert.

[LostOne0069]

1st meeting with 1st lawyer: He looks at our income and NOTHING else and says, "you can't do chapter 7, you have to do a chapter 13 with $500-$750 /month payments for 5 years, that'll be $2500, please sign here".

1st meeting with 2nd lawyer: he looks at EVERYTHING, spends an hour and a half interviewing me about what I make and what I owe and how much we spend and on what... Then says that we should be able to do a chapter 7, even though we make a decent income, because we're below the median for our family size for this state. I show him the research I've done on section 707 of the bankruptcy code and he pretty much agrees with my interpretation of it but warns that it's the judge's interpretation that really matters and whether or not that judge will agree with OUR interpretation.

2. I pay this attorney $1750 + filing fees to do my BK, they give me a packet with a bunch of information they want from me, copies of bills, statements etc. etc.... I take almost 2 months gathering this information and get it back to the law office a couple of weeks ago.

3. Last week, I called and talked with my attorney's secretary, who states that she's working on it now, but it will take some time to complete as we have to use out of state exemptions. She expects to have it done sometime this week.

4. I plan on calling the attorneys office again on Friday if I haven't heard anything by then... I was told that once she was done filling everything out and typing it into the computer, she gives it to the attorney who reads everything through and gives it back with any corrections. Then, once they have a "final draft" of it, they'll mail it to my wife and I to review and, if we don't have any changes, we go in to their office to review everything with the attorney and, once again if there are no changes, sign the final so they can file.

I'm hoping we get filed sometime next week or the week after at the latest.

[Minnymouth]

Under the new laws, my attorney that I had in my Chapter 7 would have paid from very stiff penalties for his actions and lack of them regarding my case. Since I was under the old laws, now I have to go back and sue him for damages and neglect.......

The new laws help protect the filer - this I am glad to see......

Many bad attorneys out there just take your money and run and do as little as possible..... what are they going to loose??? NOTHING..... it's your losss!!!

So I so thrilled when I saw where the laws hold the attorney responsible....... and he has to sign off on it..............

Maybe someone else won't have to go thru what I did..............

By the way - my attorney told me for months - probably 8 or 12 times - that their was NO WAY I WOULD LOOSE MY HOME by filing bankruptcy...... I had made it perfectly clear that if I was in in danger of loosing my home I would go back to work on a 2nd job sick or not..... that I would not jeapordize loosing my home...... Well, I did!!!!!!

This was told to me BEFORE all the little clerical errors were discovered (which he should have found when he looked over the petition and the deeds, etc paperwork). When the Trustee found these errors - all hell broke loose in my case.............

When he discovered his butt was in a sling - then he started covering his own a$$ and put me out to dry at the hands of the Trustee.

[NowOrNever]

I met with the attorney for about an hour the first time. He said that based on our income and the rudimentary sheet I filed out in the office that we would do a 13. Then I met with one of his paralegals. She went over everything I needed to provide and gave me a large workbook to fill out regarding assets and debts. I also paid some on the retainer.

When I finished that a couple weeks later, I met with the paralegal again to go over my workbook and provide the documents she requested. That lasted about two hours. I also paid some more on the retainer.

They called me a couple of weeks later and said they had the paperwork ready to go, but it was a couple more weeks before I could take off to go in. DH and I both had to attend this one. We went over the numbers with the paralegal again and then met with the attorney. We poured over the schedules and he asked why we were going 13, there was no way we could do a 13 payment. He spent almost four hours with us that day crunching numbers and seeing exactly where we were. He said we were going to change to 7. At that appointment I paid the remainder of all fees.

A couple weeks later we went in to go over the 7 papers. He answered all of our questions, no matter how repetitive, and is such a nice guy. I really trust him - I hope it's not displaced! Anyway, at that meeting I had to pay an additional $25 since a 7 costs more to file than a 13.

Bankruptcy is all he handles and has been doing it for 30 years. He has written many articles and done presentations on interpreting the new laws for our state bar, so I feel he's very well versed on the subject.

We have drawn the best of the three available trustees. We have our 341 on the 21st of this month. I'm trying not to obsess at this point, and am just SO THANKFUL that the phone has stopped ringing!

[carla107]

Hi,
I spoke to several attorneys over the phone and they all had something different to say. Even the attorney that I decided to use told me a little bit of wrong info. The best thing that I did so far was to check out alot of information from this board and lawyers.com. I can't beleive how much it helped( even to give the attorney who gave me the wrong information another chance). An attorney on the board said that it was just a hard time for lawyers and they are still figuring out the new laws. I was really glad that I gave her another chance. It turned out that she was also a trustee and knew exacly what they would be looking for.
I still have about forty days to go before I get discharged and I don't want to count my chickens but so far so good.
Just keep trying to find out infomation that relates to your case and ask questions. You will be very glad that you did. Good Luck!

[krobin02]

I don't really remember my two consults, just some general impressions that I held on to. Neither one of my consults lasted long and after them, I had all the information I needed to go it alone. I am soooooo glad I saved that expense. It was worth the worry to not have to pay yet another large amount of money. Anyway, the first guy I liked. He was understanding and didn't make me feel like I was just another sucker to drain money from. He also had an air of compasion about him. If I had parted with the money, he is who I would have chosen. The second one was just out to get my money. I wanted to leave after like 5 minutes. They kept pressuring me to put a down payment for the retainer right then and there. I felt like I needed to escape!!! But the consults had information such as what documents they needed so I took those lists, printed all the forms off the US court website, and did it myself!

[keepmine]

Mine was similar to Anonymuse's meeting.
Just a real professional business meeting where all of my questions ere answered and then, he asked a bunch of questions. We met for nearly an hour. I took home the papers and filled 'em out and when I returned them to his paralegal, I gave them a check for 50%. That's when I directed my prediators {err creditors} to his office.
About 10 days later, the para called with a few questions and we then made an appointment to review the petition prior to filing. At that point, I paid the balance of the fees.

[Sammy]

We've had several consultation meetings trying to find the right fit - our final one will be Tuesday with a former Trustee. For the most part, they've all been very similar to one another ... with a few very notable exceptions.

My wife met with Atty "A" while I was out of town. He literally told her she wasn't being ethical, was trying to duck her financial responsibilities and as such he wouldn't represent her.

Atty "S" was very generous with his time. I think we spent a bit over 90 minutes in our consultation. Because virtually all of our unsecured debt is in my wife's name, he suggested that we could, in fact, have her file without my doing likewise thus protecting my credit. Taken seperately her income is below the means test and he said that they did NOT have to include my income as I would not be filing and wasn't a signatory of the debt. When I expressed surprise because that was counter to what 2 other lawyers had told us, he chuckled a bit and pulled out the code book and said "nope, not according to this". He even called in one of the paralegals who said, "yep, we do that all the time". He recommended that we cease paying those debts that would go into bk and take our required credit counseling course. After completing the course several weeks later, we go in to see him to pay the retainer and submit the paperwork he'd provided to us. This time, both he and the paralegal have a totally different story about our ability to file just in my wife's name and just on her income. "Well, we researched it a bit more and it seems you WILL have to include both incomes even if she files in her name only." Needless to say we immediately lost all confidence in his abilities and left without retaining him.


Our consultation with Atty "G" was the shortest on record. I walked out on him within the first 3 minutes. One of the first things we pointed out to him was that my company reimburses me for business expenses on a seperate and non-taxed line item on my pay stub (which he was examining at the time). It is NOT calculated into the gross income YTD line, yet he insisted those travel and office expense reimbursements have to be included as income. I said "that's not my understanding, as it's not taxed and not reflected in the YTD". He sat back with a smirk asked where I'd earned my law degree and if I was licensed to practice law in Colorado. I said, no, I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I do know how to perform basic research. He literally tossed the paperwork back at me and said "well since you know so much about the law then maybe you should represent yourself". I won't repeat on this board what I expressed as my opinion of his questionable lineage and walked out.


One of the others we'd met with previously would currently be my first choice except that he only does Ch7 and we may have to consider ch13.
We have high hopes of our meeting with the former Trustee this week. If that doesn't go well, I'm not sure who we will retain.

[Minnymouth]

SAMMY,
YES, the attorney was right that your expense account would have to be considered "income"......... BUT ALSO somewhere on the forms it's also listed as an "expense" so it washes itself out when it comes to your total income....... (but it does have to be included).

But if he's such a smart ass now, is that how he is going to be all along........

Listen to your attorney, voice little opinion about what you have learned off of forums and reading...... just remember whether you agree with him or not..... then choose your attorney based on your observations..... pick the most knowledgeable, courteous one......

Ask questions, see what the attorneys response to it is...... most of the time you will already know what the answer will be.......

Remember the attorney is supposed to work in your best interest, not his!!

[Sammy]

Minny,

exactly why I walked out on him - if he was that big of a turd in the consultation, then....

Our biggest challenge w.r.t. selecting an attorney is finding someone who fits the right mix of knowledgable, credible, aggressive to the point of pushing the gray areas w/o being foolhardy, and personality. As I said, I found one that I like, but he only does Ch7 which is, of course, our preference. But if the court kicks it back and we have to revert to Ch13 then our money with that lawyer is lost.

We have an initial appt with one tomorrow who is a former trustee - we'll see how that goes so we can get this thing rolling, over and done with.

[Minnymouth]

Report back after your meeting and let us know how you feel about the former Trustee...........

He can really tell you one way or the other, Chapt 7 or 13................

He knows what Trustee's look for and will accept......

And I bet you'll find he has more knowledge, openness, and confidence than the others.

If you get the opportunity mention you knew he was a former Trustee and ask why he doesn'5 do it anymore???

Get back with us afterwards...........

[robivi3]

Man, mine was a great experience. We discussed my Web business and his wife's and I gave him some info on Search Engine rankings. As far as the BK we discussed every possible scenario, he tolsd me where the red flags were and was right. This man had integrity, he is a good family person and he was a huge help. He let me pay for the extras beyond discharge. As far as Attorneys go i was truly blessed, he is a good man. His Office is in Plantation Florida if anyone needs a good lawyer.

Paperwork, eh, had to be corrected, a little sloppy there but everything was discharged OK, afew were even discharged three times on paper!

[Sammy]

Report back after your meeting and let us know how you feel about the former Trustee..........

Get back with us afterwards...........

We just got home from the consultation with the former trustee. This guy is by far the best we've spoken with.

His rates were a little higher than the others we've spoken to, but I have more confidence in him than all the others combined. We're barely beginning, but I'm more optimistic about this whole issue than I have been in a LONG time.

[anonymuse]

We just got home from the consultation with the former trustee. This guy is by far the best we've spoken with.

His rates were a little higher than the others we've spoken to, but I have more confidence in him than all the others combined. We're barely beginning, but I'm more optimistic about this whole issue than I have been in a LONG time.

If you don't mind sharing, what is he charging? Mine is $1475 and includes filing fees but does not include pre-bk counseling.