Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
• DUI/DWI
  With completion of the meeting of creditors, there’s a waiting period of 60 days. During this period creditors can take several actions, although they rarely do. If a creditor believes you’ve hidden assets and not listed them on the bankruptcy petition, they can file a complaint objecting to a discharge. On the other hand, a creditor can seek to have a particular debt excepted from discharge. There are 19 exceptions to discharge. All but three are, you might say, automatic. Most importantly, they are debts owed for support obligations; taxes due within three years of filing for bankruptcy; and government guaranteed student loans. The other 15 exceptions to discharge are Congress’s tinkering with social policy. For example, a debt arising out of liability from drunk driving is excepted from discharge. The most frequent exceptions used by creditors is essentially fraud - typically where a creditor claims that you got a cash advance or purchased goods on a credit card without an intention to repay. If no creditors object to a discharge or seek an exception to discharge - and they typically don’t - the debtor gets a discharge order in the mail about a week to two weeks after the expiration of the 60 day period. In chapter 13, the debtor gets a discharge after making all plan payments. What is key to a successful chapter 13 case, though, is that all payments to secured creditors after filing for bankruptcy, such as house and car payments, are made.

Health Law

• Personal Injury
  General practice of law with emphasis on bankruptcy, and including domestic relations, real property, employment, taxation, personal injury, general civil litigation, and criminal appellate.

Finance Law

• Bankruptcy
• Foreclosure
  The object of bankruptcy is to give one a discharge. It is achieved in two different ways: Liquidation under chapter 7; reorganization under chapters 11 or 13. Put simply, "reorganization" means that through a plan you pay your creditors at least a portion of what is owed. Chapter 11 is generally resorted to by businesses that have a chance of turning things around. Chapter 13 is used by persons who are behind in payments on things in which a creditor has a security interest, like a mortgage or deed of trust on a house or a lien on a car, are in danger of losing the property by foreclosure or repossession, want to keep the property, and have a regular income with which to get caught up on the missed payments. A typical chapter 13 plan would be to get caught up on a mortgage arrearage over 36 months and to pay the unsecured creditors - the credit card creditors - at least 15%. Such a plan would have the debtor paying the chapter 13 trustee monthly installments. Once the plan is confirmed, generally about three months after filing, payments would be made by wage withholding. Chapter 13 can also be used by someone who owes taxes and either cannot work out an installment payment plan with the taxing authority, needs more time to pay than the taxing authority is willing to allow, or finds that paying a 10% administrative fee is a less expensive alternative than an installment arrangement where the taxes continue to accrue interest. In other words, on this last point, it may be cheaper, say, if you owe $100,000. in taxes to pay the 10% administrative fee, $10,000. in this case, than an installment arrangement where the taxes continue to accrue interest and payments are applied first to the oldest accrued interest, then to taxes for the oldest year, then to the next oldest interest and taxes, etc. (As an aside, with Bankruptcy Reform you can calculate the actual percentage for the trustee’s fee and in the Eastern District of Virginia it is 6 %.)