A client sent me a letter he got from a car dealership touting the financing he can get even though he is currently in bankruptcy. You can find a copy of the letter here. How does a car dealer think Read more >>
September 4, 2014
Bankruptcy works in unexpected ways. That’s how a colleague sells his potential clients on hiring him to get a discharge in bankruptcy. And he’s right. My client opened a fast-food. Read more >>
July 30, 2014
My clients were nurses at a local hospital. They’re immigrants and English isn’t their first language. They worked hard and bought a house. One day, Read more >>
October 28, 2013
I had a bankruptcy client a few years ago. He owned two office buildings with mortgages totaling more than the buildings’ values. They were going to be foreclosed, triggering personal guarantees, and the client would owe millions of dollars to the lender. If he somehow got out of the personal guarantees, he would owe hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax on the imputed income from canceling his debt. Read more »
September 12, 2013
Living in semi-arid California, I’ve gotten used to seeing large columns of smoke on hot, windy days. Most recently, I could see the Springs Fire burning between Camarillo and Malibu from a distance, Fortunately, it did little damage Read more >>
May 14, 2013
I like to say that I am involved in “capitalist recycling.” In a capitalist, free-market society, there are people who win and there are people who lose. Those people who do not win and cannot function economically because of crushing debt Read more >>
March 7, 2013
The Absolute Priority Rule is an arcane part of the Bankruptcy Code (see 11 USC § 1129(b)(2)(B)(ii)). It says that, in a Chapter 11 plan, lower classes of creditors cannot be paid anything unless higher classes have either been paid in full Read more >>
January 18, 2013
“Impossible,” you’re probably thinking. But it’s not. Here’s why. Read more »
December 26, 2012
He had a great mansion in Lake Sherwood, near Thousand Oaks, but when his financial-services firm fell apart, so did his life. Baseball legend Lenny Dykstra, who went through bankruptcy in 2009 (claiming about $25 million in assets and $37 million in debts), thought he could hide assets Read more >>
December 3, 2012
Attorneys often try to hide a client’s information, disclosing as little as possible. This legal strategy sometimes has comical effects, as in this exchange I heard in a deposition:Read more >>
October 15, 2012
