The initial meeting with a prospective bankruptcy client is the most important work I do as a bankruptcy lawyer. It’s also the hardest. The results of that meeting lay the groundwork for the entirety of the case. The challenge is establishing rapport with an utter stranger, who’s in distress, and persuading them to spill all […]
Delay Division of Community Property At Peril of Bankruptcy
Put off the division of community property in a marital dissolution at your peril. Hesitate and you risk all of the community property being swept up in a bankruptcy by the other spouse. And you’ll have little control where community property assets fall. Community property is all in The threat begins with the bankruptcy law […]
How to avoid bankruptcy blunders
Avoiding bankruptcy malpractice is a learned skill and necessary for professional survival. If word of mouth from happy clients is the world’s best advertising for a bankruptcy lawyer, loud complaints from unhappy clients in the internet age is professional poison. So, for both client and lawyer future wellbeing, it’s worth considering how to avoid bankruptcy […]
Voluntary Retirement Contributions Not Disposable Income in the 9th
Contributions to an employer-sponsored retirement plan going forward are excluded from disposable income in Chapter 13, says the 9th Circuit in Saldana, 122 F.4th 333, 19 years after BAPCPA became law. What took so long? Words in the statute matter Congress, in its BAPCPA-typical awkward fashion, said right there, in 541(b)(7)’s hanging paragraph, that amounts […]
2026 Brings Larger California Homestead
It’s time to check out the California homestead numbers for 2026. The 2021 expanded California homestead not only brought the exemption amount closer to the real cost of housing, it provided for annual adjustments for inflation. The original legislation created a $300,000 floor on the exemption and a $600,000 cap for homeowners, based on the median price of a […]
Putting the spotlight on Chapter 13
My fellow author at ConsiderChapter13.org Jen Lee called for the bankruptcy bar to do a better job of pitching the manifest strengths of Chapter 13. Ditch the jargon and focus on the facts that are Chapter 13’s strenght. Her advice to use head to head comparisons with alternative approaches to debt for the client is […]
BOLO Alert: Community Property in Unexpected Places
In law enforcement, BOLO stands for Be On the Look Out. But even outside of law enforcement, BOLO alerts operate. In this case, we as bankruptcy lawyers need to be on the look out for community property. It’s easy to think that community property is an issue only for practitioners in the 9 community property […]
