The debtor's discharge was denied under 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(6) as a willful and malicious injury against the blanket lien-holder in In re Razykowski, 2013 WL 3043410 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2013).  The debtor, Ms. Razykowski, purchased a children's clothing store from the creditor in April 2008, paying $1,000 down and financing $57,244 the balance with a note to the seller.  The seller took back a lien on the inventory and proceeds.  Ms. Razykowski had been collecting approximately $500/week salary from the store after the purchase, but stopped collecting this salary sometime in 2009.  In late 2010 Ms. Razykowski conducted a liquidation sale of the inventory over several months, collecting $21,519 and leaving approximately $18,000 in inventory upon the closing of the store.  The proceeds were put in a segregated bank account.    Ms. Razykowski attempted settlement with the creditors in March 2011, which was rejected.  In September 2011 a judgment was entered against her on 12 September 2011.   On 15 September Ms. Razykowski withdrew the balance of the funds from the bank account, and kept the sum as cash in her home.  These funds were then used for her personal living expenses.     The seller filed a complaint under 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(6) to deny the discharge of the debt alleging willful and malicious injury, by using funds subject to the security interest for personal expenses.  Ms. Razykowsky asserted that she simply paid another creditor with the funds, herself, for the back wages owed.    The terms of the security agreement prohibited sale, lease, or disposal of the collateral without written permission of the seller.  While there was no qualification allowing for sale of inventory in the ordinary course of business, the court concluded that the parties intended for such sales to be allowed. However, there was no basis to conclude that this consent for sale extended to out of the ordinary course of business sales, much less to disposal of the proceeds of such a sale.  Thus written consent was required from the seller to dispose of the collateral or to pay expenses from the proceeds of such sale.    Sale of collateral may be the subject of an action for conversion.   The Court then examined whether the conversion was willful as required for §523(a)(6).  The Court quoted  Davis v. Aetna Acceptance Co.:   There is no doubt that an act of conversion, if willful and malicious, is an injury to property within the scope  of this exception.... But a willful and malicious injury does not follow as of course from every act of conversion, without reference to the circumstances. There may be a conversion which is innocent or technical, an unauthorized assumption of dominion without willfulness or malice. There may be an honest, but mistaken belief, engendered by a course of dealing, that powers have been enlarged or incapacities removed. In these and like cases, what is done is a tort, but not a willful and malicious one.293 U.S. 328, 332 (1934) (citations omitted).  The Court concluded that Ms. Razykowsky understood the duty she had to preserve the sellers security interest in the proceeds of the sale of the inventory.  This conclusion was based on three factors.  First, her testimony that she read and understood the security agreement.  This puts the burden on her to produce evidence that the conversion was not willful.  Second, her segregation of the proceeds showed her understanding that she did not have the right to commingle the funds or withdraw the funds for her own benefit.  This implies her understanding of the lienholder's superior claim to such funds.  Third, the seller had sent correspondence to Ms. Razykowsky's attorney indicating that several creditors were asserting UCC liens in the proceeds.  It is fair to assume that counsel communicated these concerns to Ms. Razykowsky.  Yet she produced no evidence why she believed an unsecured claim could be paid with funds on which creditors were asserting liens. Finally, the timing of withdrawal of the funds three days after the judgment suggests that Ms. Razykowsky was placing her interests ahead of the sellers.   The court granted a judgment of nondischargeability for the amount of the sale proceeds, rather than the amount of the promissory note.  There was no evidence that the original debt arose from a willful and malicious injury, thus the nondischargable injury related to the conversion of the proceeds not the original debt.

Here at Shenwick & Associates, many of our clients have complex bankruptcy cases involving factors that often lead to increased scrutiny by the Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustees assigned to the cases, as well as by the United States Trustee Program (USTP), a component of the U.S. Department of Justice that oversees the administration of bankruptcy cases and Bankruptcy Trustees. Some of these factors include: • High levels of income, expenses and/or assets • Tax debts • Business debts As part of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), the USTP established procedures for independent accounting firms to audit petitions, schedules, and other information in consumer bankruptcy cases. However, due to the federal budget sequestration that began on March 1, 2013, the USTP has indefinitely suspended its designation of cases subject to audit and notified the independent accounting firms performing the audits. At the conclusion of fiscal year 2013 (Sept. 30th), the USTP will make public information concerning the aggregate results of the debtor audits performed during fiscal year 2013. To find out how you can minimize the chances of an audit of your bankruptcy case through pre–bankruptcy planning, please contact Jim Shenwick.

In an unusual move, the Supreme Court granted cert yesterday to consider the petition of a California man who filed a pro se petition for cert seeking to review the decision of a bankruptcy court to surcharge his homestead exemption under section 105.   No. 12-5196, Law v. Siegel.   The petition for cert and other documents can be found here courtesy of scotusblog.com.   The case involves a debtor who filed bankruptcy on January 5, 2004 and claimed that his homestead was subject to two liens which consumed all of its nonexempt value.    The Trustee was skeptical about a second lien in the name of Lilli Lin and filed an adversary proceeding seeking its avoidance.   After a default judgment was granted, an attorney appeared representing a Chinese national named Lili Lin.   The Trustee also served a Lilli Lin of Artesia, California who filed a stipulated judgment that she had never loaned any money to the debtor.    Indeed, Lin of California stated that she was an acquaintance of the Debtor and that he had approached her about concocting a fake lien on his property.  Meanwhile, Lin of China, who did not speak English, filed declarations in English which supported the Debtor's position and were similar to his writing style.    The lien was avoided and the property was sold.    The Trustee then sought to "surcharge" the Debtor's homestead exemption to recover some of his expenses incurred in setting aside the bogus lien.   The Trustee claimed that he had incurred attorney's fees of $456,000, far in excess of the Debtor's exemption of $75,000.  Without citing any legal authority whatsoever, the Bankruptcy Court surcharged the Debtor's exemption to cover a portion of the Trustee's costs.   In re Law, 401 B.R. 447 (Bankr. C.D. Cal. 2009).    The Ninth Circuit BAP affirmed citing Ninth Circuit precedent allowing exemptions to be surcharged "when reasonably necessary to protect the integrity of the bankruptcy process."    Law v. Siegel (In re Law), 2009 Bankr. LEXIS 4542 (9th Cir. BAP 2009).   The Ninth Circuit affirmed with a vague reference to discovery sanctions, a factor that had not been mentioned in either of the lower court opinions.   Law v. Siegel (In re Law), 435 Fed. Appx. 635 (9th Cir. 2011).    Undeterred, Stephen Law filed a pro se petition in the Supreme Court and requested permission to proceed in forma pauperis.   The Trustee objected to the petition and the Solicitor General opined that while it might be appropriate to consider surcharges under section 105, this was not the right case.   Nevertheless, the Supreme Court granted the petition on June 17, 2013.To say this grant of cert is remarkable would be an understatement.   The Supreme Court receives over 7,000 petitions for cert each year, most of which are in forma pauperis petitions  (According to Chief Justice Roberts, 6,160 cases out of a total of 7,713 filed in the 2011 term were IFP cases).   So far, the Court has accepted 32 cases for next year, only three of which are IFP petitions.   (Extrapolating this out, the chance of an IFP case being granted is about one-tenth of one percent).   The Court also tends not to accept many bankruptcy petitions, considering anywhere from one to four in recent terms.   Thus, the probability of accepting an IFP case concerning bankruptcy is astronomical.    Given the vague rationales in the lower courts, it is hard to guess what the Supreme Court may be thinking.    However, here are a few possibilities:a.   The conservatives on the Court want to squelch the use of sec. 105 to do things that aren't authorized by the literal language of the Code.b.   The Court wants to slap the Ninth Circuit.c.   The Court wants to make a statement about bad debtors.d.   The Court wants to scold Trustees who run up big legal bills.     e.   All of the above.Come this time next year we should know the answer.    

As a Virginia bankruptcy lawyer, people ask me almost every day, do I need to file bankruptcy after foreclosure? When I try to answer that question, we look at the credit reports.  Usually, the first mortgage shows “foreclosed” with a zero balance.  Does that mean you are safe?  Does that mean you don’t owe the [...]The post Do I need to file bankruptcy after foreclosure–update! appeared first on Robert Weed.

    In In re Checiek, 2013 WL 2468865 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2013) Judge Williamson discussed the possibility of exempting corporate assets in an individual chapter 13 case.  The Debtor filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy, and listed as exempt under federal exemptions a 2006 Volvo truck titled in the corporate name as exempt under §522(d)(6) as a tool of the trade.  John Brook, the trustee, objected to this exemption  that could not be a tool of the trade.   Judge Williamson indicated that corporate assets might be claimed exempt under the concept of reverse corporate veil piercing.  The Court looked to Florida law since the corporation was incorporated here and the activities related to the exemption occurred here.  Veil piercing is normally used by creditors of a corporation to seek assets of the corporation shareholder, but can be used by the shareholders of a corporation to seeking to disregard the corporate form for their own benefit.   Florida law requires a finding that the corporate form was used for a fraudulent or improper purpose to enable the piercing of the corporate veil.  For example, where the lender required the borrower to incorporate in order to avoid usury laws, reverse corporate veil piercing was allowed in Gilbert v. Doris R. Corp., 111 So.2d 682, 683 (Fla. 3rd  DCA, 1959).  As there was no evidence of a fraudulent or improper purpose to the corporate form, the debtor's exemption was denied.  Further, the Debtor respected all the corporate formalities.  Finally, reverse veil piercing would prejudice third parties.However, the door is left open in limited circumstances for corporate assets to be claimed exempt in individual cases.

  When you decide to work with us to determine if Arizona bankruptcy is the right choice for you, we will want to review all of your property (assets) and your debts. To read more about the kinds of information we will want, read our article on “Gathering All the Facts.” We will also want [...]

By JOANNE KAUFMAN No long chats with the doorman. No umbrellas or wet boots in the hall. No welcome mats or decorations on the front door. No wearing flip-flops in the lobby. These are but a few of the more extreme rules that apartment boards in New York City have imposed, or at least thought about imposing, on the residents of their buildings. The average co-op or condominium has two dozen house rules. “Typically, they’re quality-of-life rules meant to benefit everyone in the closed community,” said Toni Hanson, a vice president and senior managing director of Douglas Elliman. While there’s good sense behind many of these rules — don’t hang or shake things out the window; lay off the stereo before or after a certain hour — certain strictures can charitably be described as quirky, not to say capricious or overreaching. Your home is your castle? Think again. It’s all, of course, in the interest of helping a building full of strong-minded New Yorkers coexist in (relative) harmony. Co-op boards have long issued directives about deportment and decorum, and condo boards are increasingly following suit. For the most part, they are well within their rights. Residents can either get with the program or get behind a co-op coup to remove the big-brother board members in their midst. Generally, thanks to what’s known as the business judgment rule, boards have broad latitude in making, amending and rescinding house rules — the good, the bad and the decidedly wiggy. If board members think a situation needs to be addressed, they can address away without input from residents. According to Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate litigator at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, one of the few exceptions is a stricture with a financial impact, for example, a proposal to institute a flip tax. “Then,” he said, “there has to be an amendment to the governing document, which requires a vote of the shareholders.” Certain boards are more controlling than others, said Aaron Shmulewitz, who heads the co-op-condo practice at the law firm Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman. “Some seek to regulate everything you do in a building, which I think would make it a less enjoyable building to live in,” he said. “But some residents like that, because they say it keeps inappropriate behavior out and keeps prices up.” Rules tend to fall into several categories, including the use of shared spaces like the lobby or the elevator, pets and their comportment, and outward appearances — both of the apartment owner and the apartment itself. And then there’s the whole vetting process to even get into a building. For one woman, an office coordinator in her late 20s who moved into a one-bedroom in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn last summer, it was the application request that took her by surprise. In addition to the employment, asset, credit, reference and background checks a co-op board generally requires before scheduling The Interview, the officers of this particular building also demand that a security company check out the current residence of would-be buyers, a visit for which applicants must pick up the $50 tab. “The lease on my rental was up, so I was staying with my parents on Long Island,” said the woman, who requested anonymity to avoid offending the co-op board. “I don’t think my childhood bedroom was going to give any clues about how I live, but if that was the policy, that was the policy. I wanted the apartment, so I was willing to do what I needed to do.” The scrutinizing, which took 45 minutes, included questions about the number of beds in each room, the number of people who slept in the beds and the nature of the flooring. The inspector also took photos of the interior of the house, the applicant and her parents. Reader, she passed muster — but remains puzzled. “I guess the board members wanted to make sure I was a regular person,” she said. When it comes to the space right outside an apartment, Eva Talel, a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, said that in certain buildings (and not just those that cater to the hoity-toity), tenants who deploy welcome mats, keep the front door propped open when they’re home, decline to lock the door when they leave and hang decorations on that (unlocked) door, are guilty of inappropriate behavior — guilty, in any case, of breaching house rules. “But one person’s decoration is another person’s religious symbol,” Ms. Talel said, referring to mezuzas, prayer cases that observant Jews affix to their door frames. “They can create controversy as well as a lawsuit. But the goal is uniformity within the building.” That seems to be the goal at the Upper East Side building where Mr. Sladkus lives. There, it’s “a violation to leave wet umbrellas, boots, shoes, et cetera, in the hallway outside your door,” he said. Mr. Sladkus received a reminder of this stricture via a building-wide memo one wintry night after his two young daughters — “briefly,” he said — left their snowy boots and umbrellas leaning against the door jamb. “I responded with a terse, intemperate e-mail how absurd I thought it was, since this is a family-friendly building,” Mr. Sladkus recalled. “And the response was that the building was redoing the halls and didn’t want to get them mucked up.” He then wrote back: “I can see if we had mahogany-lined hallways it might make sense, but we’re not living in the Taj Mahal.” And, he added defiantly, he continues to leave his umbrellas in the hall. Lucky for Mr. Sladkus, he doesn’t live in the Midtown East co-op where Dennis Paget is the president of the board, and where the “no umbrellas and boots in the hallways” rule is also in place. “I tell the staff people to confiscate them,” Mr. Paget said. Other “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” seem like a throwback to an upstairs, downstairs world. “The more controversial rules have to do with which people are required to use the service elevator,” Ms. Talel said. “Some buildings require it of everyone but residents and their guests. Some buildings may make an exception for nannies if they’re with their charges, and home health care aides if they’re with their patients.” Mr. Shmulewitz represents a Park Avenue building that for a few decades had a house rule barring nannies and other domestic employees from using the passenger elevators at any time. “The children had to be taken down by their caregivers in the service elevator,” he said. “It wasn’t a coincidence that they were often of a different ethnic persuasion than the shareholders.” “I think this shocked the conscience of the residents,” Mr. Shmulewitz continued. “There was enough shareholder dissent that the law was rescinded five years ago.” In some buildings, the double standard doesn’t involve residents and the hired help; it concerns residents and temporary residents. At a condominium on East 79th Street, people subletting apartments are not permitted to have pets, smoke or use the gym. “When a condo board imposes rules like this, they want to maintain differentiation and to keep things special for permanent residents,” said Gary Malin, the president of Citi Habitats. “They’re trying to make sure amenities like the gym don’t get overtaxed. The funny thing is that gyms rarely get used anyway.” Dogs are another bone of contention, thus the source of some singular rules. One East Side condo allows man’s best friend but specifically bans pit bulls, Rottweilers, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, huskies, malamutes and chow chows, and reserves the right to prohibit additional breeds. Steven Wagner, a real estate lawyer, is on the board of a Midtown East co-op that is broad-minded about breeds but requires prospective canine residents to submit to an interview. “It’s a funny rule,” Mr. Wagner said. “I’m never sure what to ask. I just say: ‘Nice doggy,’ and I pet the dog. And then I say, ‘I have no more questions.’ No dog has bitten me yet. I think that would be a problem.” Jeffrey S. Reich, a lawyer at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, recently encountered an Upper East Side building that allows residents with pets to ride on the passenger elevator, but requires maids or dog walkers tending resident pets to use the service elevator. “A shareholder took offense,” Mr. Reich added, “because she didn’t think the service elevator was clean enough for her dog.” Some board fiats are catchalls to deal with unforeseen behaviors and situations. “A lot of the rules are reactive,” Ms. Talel said. “They’re a response to a negative experience in a building or a response to something that happened in another co-op. People will hear about it and they say, ‘we can’t let that happen in our building.’ ” That may explain the Chelsea co-op where a shareholder offered music lessons at home and the board responded with a rule that “no resident or their guests shall sing or coach another singer for more than two hours followed by a break of at least two hours — up to a maximum of six hours per day.” Several years ago, Mr. Sladkus said, his firm did work for an Upper East Side co-op with “a nice elderly woman who enjoyed spending her days in the lobby. She would read, she would greet the children as they came in after school,” he recalled. “She was lonely is what she was. She wasn’t doing anything destructive, but the lobby wasn’t sprawling.” Thus, some shareholders took issue and the board took action, drafting a rule prohibiting lobby visits that exceeded two hours. “It was passed,” Mr. Sladkus said, but some residents took pity on the lobby greeter and the rule was rescinded. Similarly, Mr. Shmulewitz tells of a building whose shareholders were perturbed that a wheelchair-bound resident was spending long periods of time in the lobby. “They felt it detracted from the look of the building, so they drafted a house rule that said ‘no wheeled vehicles in the lobby,’ ” he said. In the end, the rule was not enacted. “But,” Mr. Shmulewitz said, “a crafty board with an experienced lawyer can make a rule to address something they think is objectionable without seeming to target the situation that caused the problem in the first place.” Lobbies, it seems, are as much a flash point as elevators. Recently, Jay Molishever, a sales agent at Citi Habitats, took a client to look at an apartment on First Avenue in the high 50s. “It was a rainy day, but the doorman said there was a rule that buyers and brokers were not allowed to wait inside,” Mr. Molishever said. “My buyer was furious. He’s Israeli but looks Hispanic and he was concerned that it was prejudice.” When the selling broker showed up, the buyer announced he didn’t want to live in the building. “He thought the rule was rude and exclusionary and not the sort of place that merited it,” Mr. Molishever recalled. “He said: ‘This isn’t a Park Avenue building.’ ” In some instances, house rules seem more than anything like pre-emptive strikes. An Upper West Side co-op that wanted to bar a shareholder from using his apartment to screen what Mr. Shmulewitz characterized as “a highly charged politically controversial movie.” Thus, house rule No. 33, which in addition to limiting gatherings to 20 nonresidents and demanding — in advance — the names and addresses of all guests at a gathering of more than 10 people, also prohibited any gathering with a fund-raising purpose — a key component of the event in question. Penalties for noncompliance vary. Fines are one option for a board. “They can seem like slaps on the wrist — $50, $100,” Mr. Sladkus said. “But they do start adding up for repeat offenders.” Some buildings set at a certain amount for a first offense, with subsequent offenses carrying steeper fines. “And some governing documents provide for unpaid fines to be treated like unpaid maintenance or common charges,” Mr. Sladkus said, which would mean that offenders could lose nonessential services like food deliveries and use of the gym. And persistent violations could land the shareholder in the cross hairs of a claim “that gets your lease terminated,” he said. Most boards think carefully before passing a rule and take pains to look at it from all angles, said Ms. Hanson of Douglas Elliman. “They’re residents, too,” she said, “so it’s in their best interest to be judicious.” Perhaps checking out a building’s fiats isn’t quite as important as checking out its financials. “But you do want to see if they suit your lifestyle,” Ms. Talel said. “If you’re having 100 people to a party, some buildings require you hire someone to stand at the front door to identify everyone. Some buildings even have a limit on the number of these parties you can give each year.” Still, whether it’s the cachet of the address, the flow of the rooms or the view from the library, “if you’re in love with an apartment you’re not likely to change your mind based on a house rule,” Mr. Shmulewitz said. “There are very few egregious enough for that.” Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company.  All rights reserved.

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and CATHERINE RAMPELL The nation’s largest private student lender, Sallie Mae, is cleaving itself into two companies — a move that will create a new home for more than $100 billion of student loans amid broad concerns from federal authorities and consumer advocates that graduates hobbled by debt are increasingly falling behind on their payments.The overhaul by Sallie Mae is playing out as college students, facing persistent unemployment and a sluggish economy, are defaulting on their loan payments at a rate of 13.4 percent, a level not seen for more than a decade, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Education. As student loan debt grows — it has outpaced total credit card debt, reaching more than $1 trillion — more loans are going to the riskiest borrowers, according to a January report by TransUnion Corporation, which provides credit information to lenders.Federal authorities, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, are worried that lenders have rekindled their dangerous infatuation with subprime borrowers, leading some to ignore lending standards and to court borrowers who cannot repay the loans.Earlier this month, Richard Cordray, director of the consumer bureau, compared the student loan market to the market for subprime mortgages that collapsed, leading to a precipitous drop in housing prices, during the financial crisis.“We learned a hard lesson in the wake of the mortgage meltdown,” Mr. Cordray said. “We cannot just sit by and watch this happen to people again.”Sallie Mae, which is formally the SLM Corporation, announced the split on Wednesday. It will create dual companies and hasten the retirement of the lender’s longtime chief executive, Al Lord. One company, the education-loan management business, headed by John F. Remondi, Sallie Mae’s chief operating officer, will contain about 95 percent of the student loan giant’s assets, including $118.1 billion in federal loans and $31.6 billion of private loans. The other, fashioned as a consumer-banking business, will make student loans to fill a seemingly insatiable demand from borrowers, stoked by skyrocketing college costs.At four-year public schools, the average net tuition and fees that in-state undergraduates pay — that is, after taking grant aid, tax benefits and inflation into consideration — climbed to $2,910 in the 2012-13 school year from $1,490 a decade earlier, according to the College Board’s annual survey of colleges. Room and board costs have also risen, to $9,200 from $7,090. Altogether, costs have risen 41 percent. At private, four-year nonprofit schools, average net tuition rose to $13,880 in the latest school year from $13,150 a decade earlier, and room and board increased to $10,460 from $8,660.Alongside the private loans, Sallie Mae will try to bolster its banking business by offering students more traditional products like savings accounts, the company said on Wednesday. The banking company is expected to house about $9.9 billion in assets, made up of private loans, and other assets including its servicing platforms.Until 2010, Sallie Mae occupied a plum position: it was paid by the federal government to act as a kind of middleman, making federal loans to students that were backstopped against losses. The loans, called Federal Family Education Loans, grew drastically during the heady days of the economy, swelling to $630 billion from $149 billion between 2000 and 2009.Then in 2010, the government opted to cut out the private lenders like Sallie Mae and increase its own lending to students, effectively removing Sallie Mae’s federal subsidy. By creating a separate bank, Sallie Mae can finance new streams of loans, analysts said. The banking company will be headed by Joseph A. DePaulo, a Sallie Mae executive.Last month, Sallie Mae reported that its first-quarter earnings had more than tripled. On a conference call with investors on Wednesday, Mr. Remondi outlined the split’s potential benefits, saying, “We see ourselves as having two distinct businesses.”“These entities can better succeed as distinct and separate entities,” he added.Still, Sallie Mae is at the center of a market that is roiled by trouble. More than half of outstanding student loans are in deferment because borrowers cannot afford to pay them back, according to the January report by TransUnion. Student loan balances surged by 75 percent between 2007 and 2012, the report showed.While the housing market is showing signs of a resurgence, with the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index on Tuesday posting its largest gains in seven years, student loan debt could dampen the recovery. Authorities from organizations like the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Treasury Department have warned that graduates saddled with debt will put off big purchases like houses.Timothy Reeder and his wife, Christine, say they never imagined that after racking up almost $100,000 in student loan debt they would be struggling with low-paying jobs. The couple, who live in St. Louis, fell behind on their loan payments more than a year ago because Mr. Reeder, an Iraq veteran, and his wife, a social worker, could not cobble together enough money for nearly $400 a month in loan payments. Amplifying their distress, Mr. Reeder lost his job as a security guard in January. Struggling with the debt, the couple said they have delayed buying a home.“I just had no idea what this debt would do to me,” Mr. Reeder said.Whittling down student loan debt could become even more difficult. Interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans, which are currently at 3.4 percent, are poised to double to 6.8 percent on July 1 unless Congress passes legislation to stop the increase, said Mark Kantrowitz, who publishes a financial-aid information Web site called FinAid.org.Student loans can dog borrowers for their lifetimes, consumer advocates say. Herman De Jesus, a senior program associate with the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, works with several people 65 and older who are still burdened with debt, particularly from for-profit schools.Josephine Soto, 65, was haunted by roughly $8,000 in federal student loan debt after enrolling in a for-profit nursing school in 1982. After she graduated, Ms. Soto, who lives in New York, was unable to find a job that paid enough to cover her loans. Ms. Soto ultimately won a disability discharge of the loan last year but says she still remembers the harassing calls from collectors.“I just felt lost and confused as they were threatening me,” she said.Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company.  All rights reserved.

If you’re interested in learning how to bring in more business and streamline your practice for greater efficiency, there’s no better place to be than in Boston this July. If the living isn’t easy in your practice, spend an intense, no frills weekend with me  and Jay Fleischman working the marketing and management side of a consumer law practice. You need to be there if your firm website just occupies space in the internet you think Penguin is an arctic water bird you like filing  and filing cabinents your staff takes home more than you do you’re competing for clients with petition preparers and cut rate mills your blog is as interesting as a parts manual you have no one to ask about law as business your SEO is DOA your kids are more techno savvy than you are your paid leads lead nowhere All the legal skills in the world are useless if aren’t attracting clients who can benefit.  And no one taught us this stuff in law school. In fact,  if what you know about SEO is more than a couple years old, you’ve likely gotten left behind in internet marketing. So let’s talk about network building, online and off line.  Content creation, traffic growth, staff hiring, and cost effective technology. The classroom is small, so we can take questions and have real discussions. Joining Jay and me will be Gene Melchionne, Rachel Foley and Michelle Kainen.  These are all practicing bankruptcy lawyers with years of experience and a passion for the management side of law, as well as the client side. Read what those attended earlier workshops said about the experience. Early-bird pricing ends June 7th.  Sign up with the promo code lanning and you save an extra $100. If the living is easy in your practice, stay home and BBQ. If it isn’t, join Jay and me in Boston for some down home practice building.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy can be filed by an individual or a joint case husband and wife.  Chapter 13 cannot be filed by a corporation.  In order to file for Chapter 13, an individual must complete several prefiling requirements.  The most important requirement is the taking of a credit counseling session.  The credit counseling session+ Read MoreThe post Who can file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy? appeared first on David M. Siegel.