What is the cost of bankruptcy today? Is There A Cheap Bankruptcy For American Debtors? Any low cost bankruptcy in an affordable range? Today, while Americans are rightly outraged by the issue of the AIG bonus and excessive corporate compensation, American bankruptcy attorneys show no hint of responsibility or sacrifice as they reportedly continue to demand and collect! $ 1,000 per hour rates for corporate bankruptcy work!

With the nation’s tough economic times and high unemployment, and many Americans, both individuals and businesses, increasingly harmed, the central economic problem for many Americans is the cost of bankruptcy, a sacred right conferred by the Constitution. Do we all have to “go to Law School” to function well as debtors and consumers in today’s economy?

In reaction to the bankruptcy attorneys’ charge of $ 1,110 per hour in a Chicago case liquidating then-giant United Airlines, an outraged Chicago journalist Knight Ridder gave this advice to workers who lost their jobs at the Bankrupt airline: “in your next lives, go to law school.” (“UAL bankruptcy attorneys document a fee party,” Tribune News, March 5, 2003).

The bankruptcy has recently been called “America’s [current] growth industry “by the British Times newspaper. At a time when nearly every other industry in the United States, indeed throughout the industrialized world, is experiencing a massive economic explosion and job layoffs, the British newspaper noted, American “Lawyers who specialize in representing failed firms are a hot commodity.” (See Quote 1 below at the end of this article.) That can be great for bankruptcy attorneys’ pockets. But what about the rest of America, especially if you are so distressed that you have to file for bankruptcy? How much will bankruptcy cost?

An American bankruptcy attorney, Jason Kilborn, wrote in a CreditSlips.com article characterizing the English newspaper report as “envy of American bankruptcy attorneys” by British attorneys which, he said, “is doubly powerful as even bankruptcy attorneys don’t exist. ” as prominent as in the US “However, he noted that even” here in the US lawyers from other areas [of legal practice] they must be looking enviously at their bankrupt counterparts, as our industry enjoys (if we can use that word multi-directional no fault!) rapid growth while other areas contract, “concluding by appealing to fellow American bankruptcy attorneys to “Let us Bankruptcy attorneys try not to be too snooty (for those with mood problems, yes, this is a little joke!)” about its unique position as a lonely virtual professional ‘growth industry’ in amidst economic ruin and devastation in the nation and the world.

In fact, Mr. Kilborn and his fellow American bankruptcy attorneys have much to apologize for to the American people, and there are still many explanations to be made. “Corporate greed” for AIG and Wall Street executives, right? What about “bankruptcy attorney greed”? Or the excessive selfishness, opportunism and lack of sacrifice of bankruptcy attorneys for conduct so remarkable that this legal specialty has shown itself so strikingly as major professional players in the current American economic crisis! It is not the least of them that, to date, the legal profession has yet to provide a legitimate alternative low-cost bankruptcy filing system to the lawyers’ high-cost bankruptcy system, and a system that leads to low-cost bankruptcy. cost to debtors and easily within their reach.

In a somewhat remarkably way, it’s something that has somehow managed to escape the scrutiny of the general public or the media, or even the attention, that it clearly should attract. One of the more recent cases frequently cited by experts in such discussions relates to the liquidation work of attorneys at now-bankrupt airline giant United Air Lines. This is the case involving Chicago-based UAL outside law firm Kirkland & Ellis, which is allegedly the first case to “break the $ 1,000 per hour barrier” in legal fees, as his position in that case was one hour. $ 1,110 fee to liquidate the LAU in bankruptcy.

It was a fee whose magnitude prompted another reporter in a more recent bankruptcy case, to call the $ 950-per-hour rate charged by the New York law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges in the largest US bankruptcy case. of history, the Lehman Brothers. Holdings Inc, to “look like a discount rate and a mere” negligible sum. Recent reports of exorbitant bonuses taken or planned by executives of wealthy but troubled institutions like Lehman Brothers, AIG, auto companies, and others, have sparked a gradual wave of public and political outrage and condemnation across the United States over the lifestyle. excessive of corporations. and exorbitant compensation and “corporate greed” from corporate executives. (See quote 2 below).

But where has the similar outrage from Washington, local politicians and the public, or the media reporting on it, against the outrageous $ 1,000 plus hourly fees charged by bankruptcy attorneys on the job of corporate bankruptcies? Yet a similar outrage against the equally outrageous average fee of $ 2,000 to $ 2,500 that attorneys charge distressed debtors in the simplest types of Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy cases?

President Barack Obama has publicly called this conduct “disgraceful.” And, since the latest story broke public condemnation, with well-publicized public rallies and protests at AIG offices and the homes of the latest over AIG executives’ attempt to dole out bonuses of roughly $ 160 million among its workers, prominent American politicians, from President Barack Obama to members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have taken turns rushing before the cameras and on the airwaves to denounce and condemn the “greed and corporate theft” of the executives and US business institutions in high-level places. And even the general public has joined the parade of its executives in Connecticut. A common refrain from protesters and individuals condemning such predatory behavior as to what is particularly infuriating is that it is simply outrageous and intolerable for individuals or institutions in positions of privilege or advantage to “exploit the misery” of Americans in vulnerable situations. who are to meet their routine financial obligations in today’s depressed economic conditions (e.g., homeowners versus renters, mortgage lenders versus home buyers, etc.), and live lives of affluence or extravagance even when the poorest and least Americans fortunate are mired in suffering and deprivation.

All of that is fine and correct, and very welcome. But, a central question: IN THE INTEREST OF AMERICAN JUSTICE, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND EQUAL TIME, WHERE IS THE INQUIRY AND PROTEST FOR A SIMILAR CONDUCT OF BANKRUPTCY LAWYERS IN AMERICA? Where’s the cheap bankruptcy for cash-strapped American debtors?

For most of the Americas seeking bankruptcy, the crucial impediment is the cost of bankruptcy. How much will bankruptcy cost? However, in terms of personal bankruptcies of the types of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13, for example, which are the bankruptcy domain in which mainly the poorer, less privileged and voiceless classes of society are found, the Experts have estimated that at least the same 1.1 million debtors who filed for bankruptcy in 2008 also want to file for bankruptcy, but do not do so simply because they cannot afford the legal fees required to file one. To put it very simply, these are, in effect, Americans who are deprived, each year, of filing for bankruptcy – to legitimately exercise a special constitutional right of citizenship – in order to free themselves from the burden of their debt. And because? Mainly because of and because of the financial greed and selfishness of personal bankruptcy attorneys. None other than AIG executives and corporate executives who are, and understandably enough, the recipients of outrage and condemnation from politicians and the public today.

Perhaps, we have reached the time when the American people will have to demand and insist, under the threat, perhaps, of protests and public demonstrations, that, particularly in the current economic crisis, the legal fees charged by the nation’s bankrupt lawyers both personal and corporate bankruptcies are drastically reduced and limited, as are the famous Wall Street executives and others for whom President Obama and various members of Congress have advocated such a policy. However, at the very least, the president, members of Congress, and the American public, as well as the media, should begin to draw public attention and point the finger of shame and condemn the bankruptcy attorneys. In any event, it will require a class of visibly enraged debtors, the American general public and even creditors, and a sensitive but courageous class of politicians truly sensitive to the role of bankruptcy attorneys’ exorbitant legal fees in further aggravating and worsening. the situation. The already deep economic damage to debt-ridden Americans and American businesses already swimming in deep debt burdens in the current economic downturn.

1. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5877016.ece
2. http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/activists-protest-at-aig-execs-homes/391938