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Scheduled Senate Hearing on Bankruptcy Law

posted by Bob Lawless

Tomorrow (December 6), the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts of the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on "Oversight of the Implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevent and Consumer Protection Act." I will be one of the witnesses along with Cliff White (acting director, Executive Office of U.S. Trustees), Todd Zywicki (George Mason law school), Steve Bartlett (Financial Services Roundtable), David Jones (Ass'n of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies), Judge Randall Newsome (U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California), and Henry Hillebrand, III (chapter 13 standing trustee in Nashville, Tennessee). More information about the hearing appears here: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=2442.

Having never testified before Congress, it should be an interesting experience for me. Obviously, the Republicans are still in charge of Congress, and they were the ones who decided to hold the hearing. I'll post something on Credit Slips (probably Thursday morning) about what happened.

December 5, 2006 at 10:46 AM in 2005 Bankruptcy Amendments (BAPCPA), Bankruptcy Generally

Comments

Bob, speaking from the trenches, I can tell you that IMHO the new law has effectively closed the courthouse door to many potential debtors. The filing procedures are so complicated and time consuming that most lawyers I know (myself included) have doubled our prices and since most debtors are not particularly organzied the requirement of all the pay stubs and tax returns causes people to procrastinate rather than to deal with the problem. In addition, I sense a consolidating amongst lawyers - I think we will see more filings by bankruptcy mills as smaller firms get out of the bankruptcy business entirely.

If this is what Congress intended, this is what they got.
Jonathan Ginsberg
Ginsberg Law Offices
www.thebklawyer.com/thebkblog
Atlanta, GA

Posted by: Jonathan | December 05, 2006 at 12:41 PM

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  • As a public service, the University of Illinois College of Law operates Bankr-L, an e-mail list on which bankruptcy professionals can exchange information. Bankr-L is administered by one of the Credit Slips bloggers, Professor Robert M. Lawless of the University of Illinois. Although Bankr-L is a free service, membership is limited only to persons with a professional connection to the bankruptcy field (e.g., lawyer, accountant, academic, judge). To request a subscription on Bankr-L, click here to visit the page for the list and then click on the link for "Subscribe." After completing the information there, please also send an e-mail to Professor Lawless (rlawless@illinois.edu) with a short description of your professional connection to bankruptcy. A link to a URL with a professional bio or other identifying information would be great.

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