Blogs

The United States Congress, the governing body for Bankruptcy law in the US, will be considering changes to the current Bankruptcy Code with the introduction of a bill last week from Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass).  The bill, titled the Medical Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2014 (S.

A first aid kit is a very important thing to have around and we should all have one in our home, workplace and in our vehicles.

The saga surrounding the VA continues with the release of an audit implicating the VA regarding what veterans were actually told and documented appointment times which were never relayed to the veterans themselves. This mess continues on what appears to be a daily basis. You can read the continuing coverage at a number of news outlets to include CNN.

Millennials, also referred to as generation Y, appear to be carrying a heavy load of debt. Millennials are the generation of young people who matured into young adults around the year 2000. CNN money recently reported that 4 in 10 millennials say they are “overwhelmed” by their debt according to a study done by Wells Fargo.

National pizza chain Sbarro recently announced that it has exited its Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in March and a judge approved Sbarro’s reorganization plan on May 29.

A press release on June 2, 2014 by Experian shows that long term loans for vehicles averaged 66 months for the first time.  The trend appears to be for vehicle loans to lengthen with analysis showing almost 25% of all new vehicle loans in the first quarter of 2013 are 73-84 months.  The Experian article indicates the reason for the ext

Intelligence Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2010 established a requirement for the President to submit an annual report to Congress on the security clearance process, to include the total number of security clearances across government and in-depth metrics on the timeliness of security clearance determinations in the Intelligence Community (IC).

The March 2014 edition of Birmingham Magazine listed my law partner of over twenty (20) years, Brad Botes, in its Top Attorneys 2014 poll in the "Bankruptcy Law" category.  I cannot think of anyone more deserving of this honor to be named among the best of the best in this city.

The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) has recently surveyed the exemption laws of all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. What NCLC found is that NOT EVEN ONE jurisdiction’s exemption laws meet basic standards of living that would allow a debtor to continue to support themselves and their family.

 
This is a question that I am often asked.  After all, people say, if a person can’t pay his or her creditors; how can they afford to pay their bankruptcy attorney.  As with many issues concerning bankruptcy, the answer is not a simple one.