One Benefit Is Your Bankruptcy Lawyer Will Run Interference for You With the Trustee, Which Is Greatly Important
Video Transcribed: Oklahoma City Bankruptcy Attorney Edward Kelley here, answering your Oklahoma bankruptcy questions with oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro. Today, question I get a lot, do I really need a lawyer? Why can’t I just do this myself? Well, you do need one. That’s one I feel pretty confident in answering. Unless you have done them before, there is a very steep learning curve.
My average case has 70 to over 100 pages of documents filed. You have to run a statutory means test, got to do many schedules, you’ve got to understand the statement of financial affairs.
You’ve got to gather up the correct period of paystubs, and run all that through math calculations to determine what’s left over and what can be taken out and what can’t.
In other words, it’s almost impossible, even on a simple bankruptcy, for you to get it right. And even if so, your paperwork will probably be missing statutory language. So, there’s that. Also, your lawyer’s going to run interference for you with the trustee.
Trustees and the courts famously do not like to deal with cases where somebody is representing themselves, because they are forbidden to give legal advice, but there’s almost no way to get it done, as a lay person, without getting some help. And of course all this, not to say lawyers are better people, but it’s just like an electrician knows how to do electricity. You wouldn’t try to do that yourself.
Or if you did, you would expect to spend 25 to 30 times longer than the veteran electrician, because you’re going to have to teach yourself how to do it, probably trial and error with YouTube videos. So, don’t try this with bankruptcy.
Your lawyer is also going to represent you at the creditor meeting and be able to jump in if you get snafued. He’ll know, or she’ll know, what the trustee is looking for with certain questions, and can often help provide an answer that you don’t even know they’re looking for.
And lastly, your Oklahoma bankruptcy attorney, not all do this, I certainly do, will help you with your reaffirmations. You don’t want your car suddenly repossessed after bankruptcy when you’re current on it, which is something that I’ve talked about in other videos.
But if you haven’t properly reaffirmed that, that can happen and you have to get that done in a timeframe. So, there’s a lot of possibly costly penalties for mistakes in a bankruptcy, so I just say, get an attorney, preferably somebody who’s been doing it a long time, like myself.