Bankruptcy Stigma Nearly Gone
Bankruptcy Is Not a Dirty Word
When I graduated from Boston College Law School in 1996, my first job was as a law clerk to a federal bankruptcy judge in Fresno, California. I remember seeing debtors in court. They looked embarrassed. At the time, there was still a significant stigma associated with filing for bankruptcy.
Americans See Bankruptcy Differently Since Mid-90s
I am pleased, however, to see that over the course of the past decade and a half, that stigma has lessened quite a bit. Clients cry in my office a whole lot less now than they did in the past. They don’t seem to take the filing of their bankruptcy case as a sign that they have completely failed in life.
They are much more philosophical about it and recognize that many forces far beyond their control control contributed to their need to go into bankruptcy. A lost job, a divorce, huge medical bills, depression or addiction, a collapsing real estate market–all of these are things are usually present in most bankruptcy cases in America. Here’s a chart showing the top ten reasons why people file for bankruptcy
I Admire the Courage of My Bankruptcy Clients
I am actually quite impressed by the efforts that many of my clients have taken to try to deal with their debt problems. When they come to my Alameda bankruptcy office for a first interview and I discuss their assets (property of value), I always ask if they have a pension or retirement. More often than not, the response I get is that they used to have a retirement but they used it up trying to pay off credit cards. Some say they used their retirement to put food on the table because most of their monthly income was going to pay credit cards.
These are courageous people. They take their debts very seriously. They see them as not just legal but moral obligations. They don’t take that decision to file a bankruptcy case lightly. For nearly every one of my clients, bankruptcy is a last resort–after they’ve tried everything else–twice. I admire them. They are willing to do hard things in order to make life better for their families.
“You’re a Tough Girl–Like Buffy!”
Back in the late 1990s and into the new millennium, my then-wife Jennifer’s guilty pleasure was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer after putting our young son Parker to sleep. When Parker was about four, he once looked at Jennifer when he could tell she was a having a tough day and offered, “Hey, Mom, you’re a tough girl–like Buffy!” We laughed at a such a funny thing to come out of the mouth of a little kid. It was only years later that we found out that after we put him to bed, Parker would sneak down the hallway, sit just out of sight in the doorway and watch Buffy kill undead vampires every Tuesday night with his parents.
I know my clients are going through some very tough times. They are fighting for their families. They are doing everything they can to keep a roof over their kids’ heads and food in their stomachs. I feel blessed to be able to help them out. Like I said, they are courageous. They are tough people–like Buffy!
[If you’d like to make an appointment to meet with me in my Bay Area bankruptcy office (it’s in Alameda), please call me at (510) 451-6200 x101. My street address is 1516 Oak Street, Suite 315 in Alameda.]
Photo attribution: By Crimfants (http://flickr.com/photos/crimfants/327861820/) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
