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The Bankruptcy StrategistFeaturesBankruptcyLitigation

Consumer Bankruptcies In 2021 Can Benefit Both Client and Practitioner

By Joshua Denbeaux, Lee M. Perlman and Heidi Spivak
March 01, 2021

With 2020, with its unprecedented and unforeseeable economic devastation, now in the rearview mirror, consumers face 2021 not as the dawn of a new day (cue the hallelujah choir), but with a sense of foreboding and the looming specter of total financial collapse (cue the John Williams score — Jaws, not Superman). As in past times of economic turmoil, it is anticipated that there will be a surge in residential foreclosures, debt collection activity, and the resultant wave of consumer bankruptcy filings.

Simply stated, the current way of practicing bankruptcy is not going to cut it for 2021.

With a relatively steady flow of bankruptcy filings, and a predictable level of personal financial angst (such as we have become accustomed to over the past 10-12 years), it is easy for consumer bankruptcy practitioners to become complacent. Many attorneys consider the bankruptcy discharge to be the ultimate goal of a consumer bankruptcy case, and the best way to protect the consumer client. But the new wave of bankruptcy debtors will be experiencing a new, post-pandemic, financial crisis — sudden, total, affecting all family wage earners, with diminishing hope for short term recovery. And as in any time of financial crisis, they will have encountered significant financial fraud, mistreatment and mistakes.

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