Banking Law

Last May, l wrote about the claim that due to the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, it was hard to find enough lawyers who were willing to take on personal bankruptcy work. We're pleased to report that ten months later, that no longer seems to be a problem. Personal bankruptcies are booming and the prospects for growth in the number of insolvent consumers appears to be excellent. Lawyers are taking on cases hand over fist. and better still, they're increasing their fees.

A national reform act has done little to stem the flow of filings, attorneys said, even though the data seem to show otherwise.

The Albany division had almost 10,500 bankruptcy cases in 2005, as people rushed to file before new rules took effect in the fall of that year. Bankruptcy filings dropped by nearly 70 percent the next year.

The law was intended to make it harder for people to seek bankruptcy protection, requiring them to provide much more financial information in order to file.

Instead, local attorneys said, business hasn't declined, and they've had to raise fees to help keep pace with the added paperwork and new audits.

"You still have a percentage of people in every population group who run into financial difficulties," said Marc Ehrlich, partner at the 24-year-old Ehrlich & Baird law firm.

"It's like legislating that the ocean's not going to have a tide anymore. It's inevitable," he said.

Ehrlich said he expects business bankruptcies to increase by the middle of this year, mirroring recent trends in consumer filings.

Those rose 40 percent between 2006 and 2007, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

Businesses, too! It just doesn't get any better than this, does it? Your brethren in the lending and asset securitization sides of the firm might be suffering, yet you bankruptcy lawyers will be rolling in clover. I'm sure you'll throw your less fortunate partners a bone, won't you? You won't berate them for their decrease in billable hours, bitch about how you bankruptcy lawyers and your brothers in the litigation section are carrying the firm on your overworked backs, or demand that your slice of the shrinking pie of firm profits be bigger than all the rest, will you? Because you understand that business moves in cycles, and when the securitization and M&A practices were blowing and going, those guys cut you slack and didn't lord it over you and try to fill their own pockets at your expense, did they? After all, we may all be sharks, but we all have to swim in the same tank, don't we?

C'mon, brothers and sisters of the bar! Let us join hands and thank the Almighty for this bonanza of bankruptcies, and jointly feast on the carcasses of our clients. Let us gather together and rejoice, as we watch this heartwarming story of how bankruptcy can save the meek and the mild from the tyranny of the heartless.