Being a bankruptcy attorney is a unique situation. It is one of the few areas of law where the attorney can actually assist the client and at the end of the service, the client is 100% pleased with how everything went. In most areas of law, whether it be contract law, divorce law, criminal law, the client is not 100% happy with the results. This is due to the fact that legal services often involve a negotiation or a give and take where one party gets something in exchange for the other. Thus there is never a clear winner and usually both sides are not feeling like they got the greatest deal. With bankruptcy, the results are typically known ahead of time by the lawyer. The lawyer’s going to know what type of debts this person has and whether or not this type of debts are going to be eliminated. For example, if somebody comes to see me in the have old credit card debts, old medical bills and an old foreclosure that happened four years ago and they don’t have any significant assets or other types of debts, I can assure that person that after they go through the bankruptcy process, they are going to receive a fresh start and none of those creditors are going to be able to seek anything from them ever again in the future. This is a great feeling to have a client close a Chapter on a part of their life that involves stress, debt anger, and anxiety.
The benefit in my position is that I help assist in obtaining that fresh start. I help assist in removing the financial obligations from the debtor by filing under Chapter 7 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. This puts me in a unique position since when the case is over; the client is left with a good feeling about me as their attorney and about the process in general. Very few attorneys can find that kind of situation at the end of their representation. For that reason, I truly enjoy being a bankruptcy attorney. I enjoy seeing people turn their lives around financially. I enjoy seeing people lose stress from their life and anxiety. When people come to see me, they are upset. They are scared. They are nervous. They are not sleeping well. They are not eating well. They are not functioning well within their families. Once they hire me, immediately there’s a sense of relief. Once the case concludes after approximately 3 to 4 months, they have a new lease on life financially and I was a substantial part of that fresh start. For that reason, being a bankruptcy attorney has been a very rewarding experience for me and my office staff.
