\u201cThey ain\u2019t pretty, nobody wants \u2018em but, you gotta have \u2018em\u201d. This is actually a line from a commercial for a local tire shop but, it seems apropos for how many debtors and creditors feel about 341 meetings of creditors (\u201c341s\u201d). I have conducted thousands of 341s and while I cannot say I have seen it all, I have seen plenty. Most of the 341s I have conducted were done in-person.\u00a0Since COVID, all of our district\u2019s 341s have been conducted telephonically and now, via Zoom.\u00a0Over the course of the last twelve years, our office has come up with specific practices and procedures that have helped us and hopefully, will help anyone reading this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instructions<\/u><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The first practice we implemented should work for any office regardless of whether 341s are conducted in-person or virtually.\u00a0We found that providing debtors with instructions and the general questions that will be asked at the 341 prior to the actual meeting has helped reduce confusion and general chaos.\u00a0(Although it has not completely<\/em> eliminated the general chaos.) When we were in-person, we provided the instructions and questions at the Financial Management Course (a\/k\/a \u201cDebtor Education).\u00a0We held our Debtor Education classes in the morning and conducted 341s in the afternoon.\u00a0Even though the debtors only received them a few hours beforehand, they had enough time to go over the instructions and questions and even had time to ask questions of their attorneys prior to the 341.\u00a0This also helped speed up 341s as the debtors knew what questions were going to be asked, other than case-specific questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the pandemic when we started conducting 341s telephonically and now via Zoom, we no longer had the opportunity to give out the instructions and questions at the Debtor Education class.\u00a0We noticed pretty early on that it made the telephonic 341s much less time-efficient, and we were regularly staying late in order to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common problems we faced with telephonic meetings were that when debtors called in they had no clue how to mute their phone, would interrupt other 341s, they could not hear, or there was a delay due to cell phone reception (sometimes on our end, sometimes theirs, and worse, sometimes both).\u00a0After about a year of this, we came up with a list of instructions for telephonic hearings and our office started mailing these as well as the general 341 questions to the debtors approximately one month before the 341. Our instructions include the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n