Although bankruptcy filing numbers are still down in Atlanta, I am starting to see more and more activity on my web site and in email inquiries from potential clients. Nevertheless, there is still a great deal of misinformation in the general public about bankruptcy.
Yesterday, I was speaking to a potential Social Security disability client who was telling me about the debt she had incurred after she stopped working. When I suggested that bankruptcy might be an option, she responded with the statement “I thought that they changed the bankruptcy law and made it illegal to file.”
My colleague, Maryland bankruptcy attorney Brett Weiss, has written an excellent article for his firm’s web site entitled “Top 15 Myths About The New Bankruptcy Law,” which you can read by clicking the link. In this article, Brett sets the record straight about all the false rumors about bankruptcy.
Now that we have a new Congress, it will be interesting to see if there are any efforts to modify some of the sillier provisions of the new law (such as credit counseling or the debt relief agency disclosure requirements). My experience over the past twenty years has been that very, very few bankruptcy debtors use the bankruptcy process to manipulate the system.
Hopefully as the myths about bankruptcy are dispelled over time, those “honest but unfortunate” debtors who truly need a fresh start will again realize that bankruptcy relief still exists.