Bankruptcy

At County Law Center, we want you to know you have options if you are facing financial hardship.  There are a number of reasons as to why debt can accumulate so quickly, whether it is loss of a job, the decline in the housing market, an illness or divorce.  Many Americans find themselves facing the daunting task of trying to get ahead financially, but their mounting debt doesn’t allow them to do so.  Adding to the stress is the harangue of phone calls from aggressive creditors.  At County Law Center, we are here to help.

For over 19 years, County Law Center has been practicing law in both San Diego and Riverside Counties.  We have helped individuals, families and businesses with filing bankruptcies.  At County Law Center, we provide you with a free initial consultation to review your situation and discuss all possible options available to you, whether it be filing Chapter 7, Chapter 11, or Chapter 13 bankruptcy.  We can stop foreclosures, eliminate your debt and stop the harassing phone calls.

This can be a frightening and overwhelming time.  We at County Law Center will do everything we can to make things easier on you.  Please call us today to schedule your free consultation.

What you should know before filing bankruptcy:

Non-licensed legal services and/or typing services have never provided very good service to bankruptcy clients.  One reason is that typing services are not allowed to give legal advice because they are not attorneys.  Typing services may seem to offer you a better deal financially than an experienced law firm, but all they are allowed to do by law is merely type in the information you give them and process the paperwork.  Additionally, Congress has made filing bankruptcy so complex and the legal knowledge to prepare a case is so important that typing services just cannot do the job anymore.  In fact, a large percentage of the cases prepared by typing services and filed under the new law have been rejected by the bankruptcy court.  If a person's case is rejected and they try to file a new case, the new law takes away many rights they would have had in the first case. Therefore, it is very important to get the advice of an experienced bankruptcy attorney for your first case so that you will have all the rights and protections possible in that case. 

County Law Center does not charge for the initial consultation.  During that free consultation, Marc A. Duxbury will give you a preliminary idea of what bankruptcy options are available to you.  He will explain about both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 and how they would work in your situation.  Although there will still be a lot more work to be done to complete your case analysis, he will probably be able to give you a fairly good idea of the cost.

Once you decide to hire County Law Center to assist you in filing your bankruptcy, we will then accept creditor calls on your behalf.  Once you have retained an attorney, creditors are no longer allowed to contact you. 

We provide our clients with a questionnaire to complete.  The questionnaire asks all of the questions required by the Bankruptcy Court.  Upon completion of the questionnaire and payment of your filing and attorney fees we begin to process your case.  You are required to take a mandatory Credit Counseling course and provide our office with your certificate before we can file your case.  This course can be done either online or by telephone and takes approximately one hour.  Once we have prepared your official papers, you are able to review the final papers for accuracy, make any necessary changes and sign.  At that point, we will file your case at Bankruptcy Court and you are assigned an official bankruptcy case number.  Approximately 30 days after your case is filed you are required to attend a hearing with the bankruptcy trustee.  You must complete a mandatory Financial Management course within seven days of your hearing in order to receive a discharge of your debts.  This second mandatory course may also be completed online or by telephone.