Every day there is more and more talk about how the economy is on the path to recovery. The recession is over and good times are ahead. This is great news, except that for the typical American worker, the future is not so bright. The truth is that while the DOW is at an all-time…

The American dream can be expensive. Often times this dream is portrayed as homeownership with a couple of cars in the driveway. How one goes about obtaining the American dream in today’s reality is another story. Chasing the American dream has led people to run up huge consumer credit card debt and take mortgages they…

As an Oakland bankruptcy attorney, I know how difficult the thought of filing bankruptcy can be. For many of my clients, the decision to file bankruptcy comes after years of struggling to repay creditors with money they don’t have. Every month they are forced to rob Peter to pay Paul and are never able to…

In an effort to curb abusive bankruptcy filings, Congress in 2005 passed BAPCA, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. BAPCA established what is known by bankruptcy practitioners as the “Means Test.” The means test, through the use of a strict formula that incorporates a debtor’s actual expenses with standard expenses for the area…

The housing crash has left many people wondering what to do with homes that are now so far underwater they may never recover their former equity. To add insult to injury, many of these homeowners cannot afford to pay the mortgage on these underwater homes. This combination of factors has led many people to explore…

A former Mets baseball player, Lenny Dykstra, has plead guilty to bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering all stemming from a bankruptcy case he filed to get out from under over $31 million in debt. As punishment for these crimes, Mr. Dykstra was facing up 20 years in federal prison but received only…

Once you have decided you are interested in filing bankruptcy your next step should be to research which attorney you are going to hire to represent you. This is no small matter, as over the past couple of years the number of bankruptcy attorneys has increased significantly. This is both good and bad. The good…

For those of you who have had to deal with the stress and anxiety associated with receiving a call from a debt collector, this blog is for you. The only thing worse than the constant stress and anxiety associated with the inability to make ends meet is receiving a phone call from someone you’ve never…

How Bankruptcy Can Help You From Going Over The Edge The financial news today is focused on only one topic: the fiscal cliff. Will we go over it? Will the powers that be reach a deal and save us from a new recession? What is the fiscal cliff anyway? Simply put the fiscal cliff is…

You may remember that one of my first blogs dealt with the debt limits in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and how those debt limits precluded some Bay Area residents from receiving the bankruptcy help they needed in order to save their home from foreclosure. The amount of people’s mortgages coupled with their credit card, medical…