Our law firm, Phillips & Thomas LLC, was recently interviewed by Tara S. Bernard, a financial journalist at the New York Times, in relation to student loan discharge issues in bankruptcy. The article is entitled “Discharging Student Loan Debt Is Supposed to Be Easier Than Before,” and appeared the Times on August 9, 2023.
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In early October 2022, Phillips & Thomas LLC successfully litigated a student loan adversary proceeding that arose out of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case in the District of Kansas. The case was In Re Vasko (Adv. No. 21-6020, District of Kansas, June 7, 2021). The facts were as follows.
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Our Johnson County, Kansas law firm located in Leawood is a veteran-owned business. One of our attorneys and owners, George Thomas, had a prior career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps before attending law school and becoming an attorney. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) on a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship from 1986 to 1990.
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When you file a bankruptcy case, one of your responsibilities is to make sure you have disclosed all your creditors. If a creditor is not listed on your case, the debt owed to that creditor will not be discharged; other problems can also arise in your case from a failure to disclose debts and assets. One of the most frequent questions we hear from our clients is, “I’m just not sure exactly who I owe money to! How can I find this out?”
Many clients call our office after they have received the dreaded paperwork indicating that they have been sued by their credit card company. This process normally begins when someone gets a civil summons or a lawsuit petition delivered to their door, or to themselves personally. We understand that you may feel overwhelmed and confused. But although it can be a traumatic experience at first, realize that you have the power to take back control of your life. In this article we will explore what these collections lawsuits mean and what you can do to respond in an effective way.
Many people in this economy are finding themselves struggling to keep up on their car payments. When you get behind on your auto payment, you run the risk of your car being repossessed or “repoed.” A car loan gives the bank, finance company, or title loan company a lien on your vehicle: this is called a security interest. What does this mean? It means that the creditor (the “secured creditor”) has the right to take back the collateral (the car) if the payments are not made for a certain length of time. Banks or finance companies holdings such loans can use “repo men” to find and take back (“repossess”) cars that are in default on their payments.
Distressed homeowners in Kansas and Missouri should be aware that there are major differences in how the foreclosure process operates in their respective states. The procedures and processes are very different. We will sketch the general outlines here of how things works in both states.
In a recent case litigated by our law firm Phillips & Thomas LLC, a Kansas bankruptcy court discharged $234,046.00 of student loans in one of our bankruptcy cases. The court found that our debtors had satisfied the “undue burden” standard with regard to most of their student loans and therefore entered a discharge for the majority of the student loans in question.
The case in question was adversary proceeding In Re Murray (Murray v. ECMC), Dist. of Kansas, Adv. No. 15-6099 (Filed Dec. 8, 2016). In addition to the large amount of student debt that was wiped out, the outcome is significant because it demonstrates the fact that the Tenth Circuit (like many others) permits the partial discharge of student loans: as the Court said, “[in the Tenth Circuit] discharge of student loans is not an all-or-nothing proposition.”
The official bankruptcy forms and schedules underwent significant changes to their appearance, layout, and presentation on December 1, 2015. It was one of the most important overhauls of the forms in their history.
What does this mean for you? Or does it make any difference at all? We will explore some of the answers here.
You want your case to be a success, and we want your case to be a success. And to ensure that this happens, I wanted to go over some tips and pointers that experience has shown to be some of the best ways to make sure that success happens.
I’ll start with the pre-bankruptcy phase of things, then talk about things to be aware of during the case. And then I’ll talk about things to be mindful of after your case. OK?
All right. Here we go.
Kansas City Bankruptcy And Criminal Case Defense Information 