The newest figures just released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts on the February 2009 bankruptcy filings, made a single essential reality crystal clear to nearly each and every one particular, namely, that the rate at which the increasingly overburdened and restive American debtors (each individuals and organizations) are filing for bankruptcy, is at its highest levels considering that the now-famous (or infamous, many would say!) draconian modifications of 2005 to the U.S. bankruptcy law.
But, even much more considerably, that the new filing rate is ominously beginning to return to the old "hated" high bankruptcy filing levels that the nation had reached before that new law was passed in 2005, supposedly meant to correct and drastically curtail or reverse the then pre-existing high filing levels.
This latest trend in American debtor bankruptcy filings strongly underscores a number of fundamental points, amongst other folks. Initial, the depth and gravity of the financial straights and issues in which the common American customer and debtor is in right now. Second, the reality that, no matter how challenging a legal hurdle and impediment the institutional powers that be (the Congress, the lawyers, or the economic institutions, the courts, and so on) might attempt to place on the path of the American debtors to try discouraging or creating it a lot more hard for them in in search of the bankruptcy relief from their debt burdens, when it actually comes time of dire financial and economic crunch, Americans will somehow nonetheless discover a way, and will nevertheless persevere and persist even against all odds, in demanding their constitutional rights to be heard in bankruptcy and thirdly, the vital necessity, for the common debtor, for finding low-price bankruptcy filing options to lawyer.
Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and author of many books on bankruptcy, probably sums up the point finest this way, alluding to the persuasion of the Congress by a variety of unique interests to pass the 2005 law that restricted debtors from filing for bankruptcy: "The credit business [and other vested interests] did its very best to drive up the cost of filing [for bankruptcy]. But when families are in adequate trouble, they will fight their way by way of the paper ticket and greater attorneys' fees to get aid," adding that "The word is now leaking out [once once more] that the bankruptcy courts are open for organization."
THE "UNOFFICIALLY BANKRUPT DEBTORS" - DEBTORS WHO CAN'T FILE Since THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT
But, even most importantly than that, from the standpoint of the average bankruptcy-seeker right now, this raises 1 basic questions, however. Namely, just how do the current growing army of increasingly despairing American debtors who not only seek to file for individual or organization bankruptcy, but in a fantastic deal of cases, really Want to file one particular, AFFORD to file bankruptcy - in particular, the high lawyers' legal cost of filing for bankruptcy? How do these debtors get or uncover low-cost bankruptcy? A bankruptcy that debtors can reasonably afford?
Some 1.1 million (1,064,000) American debtors filed for bankruptcy this past 2008 year - filings which, numerous analysts are speedy to remind us, were carried out by these debtors in spite of, and underneath tough conditions of, a whole host of stringent, restrictive requirements and drastically increased legal fees imposed by the 2005 law. But, even a lot more considerable, from the stand point of the debtor or bankruptcy-seeker, is one more closely associated Truth: that, worse nevertheless, according to experts, THERE'S Nearly AS Many AMERICAN DEBTORS Far more who wanted to file for bankruptcy and are eligible, but could not, since they just couldn't AFFORD the lawyers' legal fees. These are debtors who Justin Harelik, a bankruptcy lawyer with Cost Law in Los Angeles, call the "unofficially bankrupt debtors" - debtors who are all but bankrupt but only lack the lawyers' hefty price tag to make their status official!