Those are the words I hate to hear from a new client.

As bankruptcy attorneys, we are in the business because we truly want to help people. It’s an emotionally tough area of law, dealing all the time with clients who are in financial peril. Usually our clients are also hurting in other ways, related to what caused or contributed to their financial problems—an illness or injury, the end of a marriage or of a business, or the loss of a job. What makes my day—which it does virtually every day—is to give great news to a client, that they will now get relief from their debts, or that there is a feasible plan to save their home, or to deal with their child support arrearage or their income tax debt. Stories of marriages saved, stress lifted and job opportunities discovered after the weight of debt stress is lifted is why we continue in this area of law.

But of course the information we share with clients is not always good news, and the advice We give is not always what my clients want to hear. Tough choices have to be made, and some goals turn out to be unrealistic.

But the most frustrating situations for us and our clients are when we find out that they have self-inflicted some of their own wounds. The easily-preventable-but-now-it’s-too-late bad decisions they’ve made, often just a few months or weeks earlier, without getting legal advice beforehand.  Continue reading →