Bankruptcy

How To Research Bankruptcy Law in Arizona and Resources and Information About Arizona Bankruptcy Cases, Whether Chapter 7, 13, 11, 12 or 9!

By Joseph McDaniel, Esq.

Thirty years ago.

The State Bar of Arizona re-published my little bankruptcy research guide sometime later, and that made me feel good.

It would also make me feel good if I could track down an old copy of it so I could stick it here on this little consumer bankruptcy blog, just for fun.

But whether you are a potential consumer debtor, or a small business, or a big business that's about to become a small business (or a flat puppy business), you would probably not be greatly assisted by that old guide, because it was pre-Internet, and was aimed strictly at lawyers who needed to research bankruptcy law.

So here are bankruptcy information resources that may help if you're doing bankruptcy research in age of the internet, and you're a non-lawyer; fortunately, there is a lot of bankruptcy information and bankruptcy analysis online these days, and some is accurate, and some...well, you get the idea.

Before I get started, let me point out that I'm not trying to turn you into an experienced bankruptcy lawyer in AZ overnight; that ain't happenin'.

But I want to have the best-informed and most-knowledgeable bankruptcy clients on the planet, and this is for those who just plain wonder about issues at three in the morning, and quite reasonably do not call my office for a consultation at that time (there's a reason I'm not an obstetrician).

And before you start to do bankruptcy research on legal topics, you really need to sharpen your focus a bit, so you probably ought to read the homework on this blog to get you warmed up. That will answer many of your current questions, and when you read twenty questions with a bankruptcy lawyer, that will raise a lot more in your mind.

So when you have a general bankruptcy question, what do you do?

Well, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Caldwell taught me well during my clerkship that the starting point of any legal discussion is probably going to be...the law!

And to find the text of the bankruptcy law, for My Favorite Price, you can check the Cornell University Law School site, which has the entire text of the gigantic statute that is bankruptcy law. Since I do not own the site, or any of the sites I am about to cite, use them at your own risk, of course. But I've always found the Cornell statute site very useful.

The Cornell Law School website will also give you insight into the second source of law in bankruptcy cases, the Rules. The Bankruptcy Rules tell you how to do what you know you want to do in Court.

But wait! There's much, much more! There are, for instance, the Local Rules of Court, and those need to be reviewed because, darn! I am particularly sensitive to their existence because the proudest moment of my then-legal-career was when I was appointed to the Committee that drafted the Local Rules of Court for the District of Arizona Bankruptcy Court, back in about 1980. I was still in law school, and I was as proud as a peacock!

But after you know where the Greek that is the Bankruptcy Code (cause it ain't written in English, and you believe that at your peril!) is located, where do you find English versions of the things you'll want to know about Bankruptcy Law in Arizona?

Well, the Bankruptcy Court Website itself is a wealth of information, from useful videos to FAQs (a FAQ is just a frequently asked question about Arizona Bankruptcy Courts and Arizona Bankruptcy Procedure and Arizona Bankruptcy Law and even Arizona Bankruptcy
Exemptions).

At the website for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona you will even get to browse through the Bankruptcy Judge's Opinions.

Now, you're going to be randomly assigned to one of the Bankruptcy Judges in the District of Arizona, and that judge will be making a decision in the even that something can't be settled between your bankruptcy lawyer and your bankruptcy trustee, or your bankruptcy attorney and a creditor.

Do you think you might want to review the opinions of the Judge who will be deciding whether you get a Discharge in your bankruptcy proceeding? Your call, of course.

Now, there are specialized areas of bankruptcy law that are going to be very, very close to your heart if you are contemplating a bankruptcy in Arizona, and considering a bankruptcy is most stressful if you don't understand or know what's coming down the road.

Which, of course, is why I built this blog!

But in specific, you're going to want to have some idea of whether you pass the Means Test.

Fortunately for you, you can reduce your anxiety by playing with a free online means test calculator, and that's a good thing.

But DON'T THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER AFTER YOU DO THE MEANS TEST! I want you to play with the means test calculator. I want you to understand the means test and what it...you know, means!

But the Means Test is a very funky Limbo Bar and figuring out what to do with the numbers is a post-graduate project. And honestly, for that you'll need an experienced, knowledgeable bankruptcy specialist in Arizona. You will think you know whether you pass the means test, but you won't know whether you fall into one of the means test exceptions, and you won't know whether you might be able to pass the means test if you pat your tummy and rub your head.

Or however that goes.

Another thing you'll want to know cold is what exemptions you might be entitled to if you file any sort of bankruptcy in Arizona.

Note that some folks believe, wrongly, that exemptions are not important in a Chapter 13. That's just wrong. They just mean something different than they do in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Arizona.

Now, to track down the Arizona Exemptions that you'll use in your bankruptcy case, you can go to the Bankruptcy Court website and the FAQs that we discussed before, and then you can drill down to the middle of those FAQs, and you see a very nice PDF with the exemptions you'll probably be using.

And the list of Arizona exemptions on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court website is a very useful summary, but sometimes you'll want to look at the actual language in the Arizona exemption statute.

Fortunately for you, there is a site that permits you to do exactly that, and here is that Arizona Revised Statute site, courtesy of the Arizona State Legislature.

But if you have not lived in Arizona for a full two years prior to filing, you may need to go check out Exemption Express. The reason is simple; you have a non-standard issue, and that needs to be analyzed prior to filing. Otherwise, you may lose more than you expect in your bankruptcy, or you may keep more than you thought you'd keep (what are the odds, right?).

But the Exemption Express website is a useful resource to help humans and lawyers alike go through the convoluted decision tree leading to the decision to assert the exemptions of the state of Arizona, or the exemptions of the state of California, or the Federal Exemptions that you usually can't use!

Now, there are a lot of online bankruptcy resources, and as soon as I get a Round Tuit, I'll come back to this post and list more for you.

And worry as little as you can; it does so little good, after all!

Prayer, on the other hand, is always a worthwhile activity.

NOTHING HERE CONSTITUTES LEGAL ADVICE RE A CHAPTER 7, CHAPTER 13, CHAPTER 11, OR CHAPTER 12. FIND AN ARIZONA BANKRUPTCY LAWYER WHO IS BOARD CERTIFIED IN BANKRUPTCY LAW, AV RATED, AVVO 10 RATED, ON SUPERLAWYERS, OR JUST VERY EXPERIENCED AND A FORMER CHAIR OF SOME BANKRUPTCY SECTION OR COMMITTEE. NOTHING HERE MAY BE USED AS LEGAL ADVICE IN CONNECTION WITH ANY BANKRUPTCY, WHETHER THAT BANKRUPTCY IS IN PHOENIX, GLENDALE, TEMPE, MESA, SCOTTSDALE, OR ANYWHERE ELSE.

Full post as published by Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney Blog on August 01, 2010 (boomark / email).