Do I really need a lawyer for bankruptcy?
Do I Really Need a Lawyer for Bankruptcy?
Good afternoon, everybody. Edward Kelly, your OKC bankruptcy attorney here with another three minutes to financial freedom. Today I’m going to cover the common question, do I need a lawyer to file bankruptcy? Can’t I just do this myself?
Well, and I’m not just saying this because I’m an attorney in that business, I would say in most cases you do need an attorney. Now, your attorney, like myself, is going to have expensive, sophisticated, and very specific software that will help generate hundreds of pages of documents. And, you know, if a case has complications, maybe several hundreds of pages of documents that are going to need to be filed in the case.
If you do this yourself, chances are you don’t have that software, or even if you bought it, you wouldn’t necessarily know how to use it, or it would take you a long time to learn how to use it. So you’re looking at a whole lot of document production. I’m not saying that it’s not doable, but first of all, you’re going to need to learn the basics of the bankruptcy code. You need to learn the specific rules of the federal district that you’re in. Local forms, local rules. You need to know who your trustee is.
The Importance of Knowledge and Experience
And if you want to be very effective, of course, like anything in life, you want to know the ins and outs. Well, you know, the personalities of who you’re dealing with, the attitudes of the creditors that you might deal with, and the outcomes based on years of experience. You know, there’s no way to fake that or just get that overnight, and often that’s the most invaluable stuff.
So you can do it yourself, and it’s certainly possible for you to be successful. I’m not going to say it’s impossible. But strap in for days and days of work and typing and document production and learning and hope that nothing out of the ordinary happens, or you’re going to have more of a learning curve.
Why Hiring a Lawyer is Recommended
So in my opinion, you do need a lawyer to file bankruptcy. At least I should say you need a lawyer to file bankruptcy with a very reasonable chance of success. And one other thing I can say that the trustees and judges abhor what they call a pro se petitioner, meaning someone filing it on their own. Because even though they’re not supposed to, generally they will end up, you know, having to help you or being in a position of seeming really unfeeling because they’re not allowed to help you.
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So, you know, I price it so you don’t need to do it yourself. And as always, you can reach me at oklahomacitybankruptcyattorney.pro. And we’ll be back tomorrow with another video.