Is Your Law Practice Evolving to Incorporate New Technology

By Jay Fleischman, Managing Attorney at Money Wise Law (Los Angeles, CA)

When the world was forced to adjust to new routines in March 2020 due to the global pandemic, I was instantly struck by how little my professional life changed. I’d worked remotely for over a decade, and my systems and procedures didn’t change.

Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for many of my fellow consumer bankruptcy lawyers. I watched many of them struggle with remote videoconferencing solutions and cloud-based applications, learn . . .

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Per Capita Bankruptcy Filings Heat Map

November 24, 2019

____________________________ Prior to his appointment as a bankruptcy judge for the District of Utah in September of 2015, Judge Anderson served for seventeen years as the Standing Chapter 13 Trustee for the District of Utah. During this time, he administered over 70,000 Chapter 13 cases. Judge Anderson was elected president of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees (NACTT), and...

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From the Editor

March 31, 2019

By Wm. Houston Brown, United States Bankruptcy Judge (Retired) Debtor’s Attorney - Chapter 13 no-look fee subject to Hawai’i’s general excise tax. Construing the State’s excise tax, the Chapter 13 debtor’s attorney could not collect the required excise tax in addition to the agreed upon no-look fee. The district’s Rights and Responsibilities Agreement between debtor and attorney did not contain...

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Senior Moments

December 1, 2019

By Peter Fessenden, Chapter 13 Standing Trustee, Retired September 30, 2017 (Portland, ME) To everything there is a season. There was a time to discover how little I knew about being a Chapter 13 trustee. There was a time to make mistakes. There was a time to address those mistakes. There was a time to solve problems. There was a...

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Federal District Court Affirms Decision that Residential Loan Modification Does Not Alter Lien Priority in Pennsylvania

March 15, 2020

By Scott Waterman, Standing Chapter 13 Trustee Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Reading) Citing Pennsylvania law, a Federal District Court in In re Hamilton (Hamilton v. Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency), ___ B.R. ____ (E.D. Pa. 2020) refused to apply the equitable subordination doctrine to reorder the priority of mortgages after the first mortgage lender granted the debtors a loan modification prior...

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Chapter 13 No-Look Fees

The NACTT Emeritus Trustees

December 10, 2023

As a follow-up to The Academy’s December 3, 2023, issue, three Emeritus Trustees weighed in. Last week’s issue included Cathy Moran’s Chapter 13 NoLook Fees: The Horns of a Dilemma and Trustee Hildebrand’s You Gotta Fix Your Own Screw-ups, On Your Own Dime. You may also want to take note of the comments on each article and add your own.

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Is Voluntary Dismissal of a Chapter 13 Case an Absolute Right?

July 12, 2020

By Daryl J. Smith, Senior Staff Attorney to Sylvia Ford Brown, Chapter 13 Trustee (Memphis, TN) and Katherine L. Rea, Staff Attorney to Pamela Simmons-Beasley, Chapter 13 Trustee (Columbia, SC) Is there ever a reason to oppose a voluntary dismissal of a chapter 13 that has not been converted from a chapter 7? Maybe. But will you be successful? Probably...

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Lawyers are People Too: An Interview with Jenny Doling

M. Jonathan Hayes

March 17, 2024

IT’S NACTT REGISTRATION TIME!! Boston on the 4th of July PLUS a Phenomenal Consumer Bankruptcy Conference. We're excited to welcome Jenny Doling as a new addition to our lineup of skilled speakers for this year. She'll be teaming up with Chapter 13 Trustee John Jansing and The Honorable Selene D. Maddox for a session titled "Evaluating Tax Returns and Other Financial Documents." Together, they'll delve into a comprehensive exploration of the complexities surrounding the scrutiny of debtors' tax returns and financial records.

Critical Case Comment – In the Windfalls Category

Henry E. Hildebrand, III

August 28, 2022

Unanticipated post-petition acquisitions, constituting property of the estate, can be captured for the purpose of repaying creditors. In re Powell, 2022 WL 1043502 (Bankr. C.D. Ill. April 7, 2022)(Perkins) Case Summary Clarence and Betty Powell filed a Chapter 13 petition in February of 2020 and their plan was confirmed that October. The plan required the Powells to make monthly payments...

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Surrender of Collateral in a Plan- What Is the Court to Do if the Debtor Doesn’t Follow Through?

June 2, 2019

By Tammy E. Stickley and Francis J. DiCesare, Staff Attorneys for Margaret A. Burks, Esq. Chapter 13 Standing Trustee (Cincinnati, OH) In a media age in which people expect to be told when “spoilers” are ahead, this summary needs no such warning. Courts have little patience for debtors who surrender collateral – especially real estate – then oppose the foreclosure...

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The Kill Switch and The Stay

July 11, 2021

Kara K. Gendron, Esquire, Mott & Gendron Law (Harrisburg, PA) A “kill switch” is a device which can be used to disable a machine or program. They have been used for years in a myriad of safety measures, such as shutting down machinery in the event of an emergency, or to prevent the theft of a machine or data. Some...

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