No Pain No Gain: Striving for Exactness in Your Bankruptcy Documents

I recently attended a continuing education course that was presented by a group of Arizona bankruptcy attorneys that I am apart of.  The presentation was given by three Phoenix bankruptcy trustees.  In every bankruptcy case that is filed there a bankruptcy trustee assigned to review your documents and administer your case.

The main point of the presentation was to give us attorneys pointers on how to help our client’s bankruptcy cases proceed more smoothly from the view point of the trustee.  Bankruptcy trustees generally have a lot of cases.  The information we were given yesterday estimated that each bankruptcy trustee in the Phoenix area gets 50-90 new chapter 7 bankruptcy cases every two weeks.  The trustee must review the filings in each case (usually about 40-60 pages) as well as review tax returns, bank statements, and pay records.

As you might imagine this is time consuming.  This process is bogged down even further if the information you provide in your bankruptcy documents is inaccurate, vague, or just flat out missing.  While this particular presentation was aimed at Arizona bankruptcy attorneys, it is applicable to you as a person going through the bankruptcy process.  As a bankruptcy attorney, the only information I can provide to the court is the information you provide me.  The more precise and accurate you are, the more precise and accurate I can be.

Bankruptcy attorneys constantly discuss ways to streamline the process of obtaining the large amount of information from their clients for the preparation of the case.  There is just no getting around it that there is a lot of detailed information required.  This takes time.  It takes effort on your part and my part.  However, as I tell my clients again and again, if we put the effort in now and the documents we file are detailed and accurate, once we file the case things will generally proceed very smoothly.  The key is in the preparation.

Help me to help to you.  The more detailed you can be in your responses to my questions, the more precise I can be in your documents that will be filed with the bankruptcy court.  The more precise I can be in your documents the happier your bankruptcy trustee will be.  And a happy trustee is always a good thing.

Image Credit:  Flixster