I was at the Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis last Thursday for a meeting of creditors. The room was full and I was planning for a long wait with my client.
To my surprise the trustee – who is the person who runs such proceedings – stood up and asked two apparently married couples to leave. These individuals were there without a lawyer and were obviously pro se – or in other words representing themselves. From the words that were exchanged it sounded as if they had gone to some sort of a non-lawyer document preparation service.
Apparently whoever they had gone to had neglected to tell them that they were supposed to provide a copy of their most recent tax return to the trustee well in advance of the date of the meeting of creditors.
I expect that those parties will be allowed to provide their tax returns to the trustee and reschedule their meeting of creditors – which those who know me know I often call the “hearing,” because that word is a good one to describe what happens. I can’t help but wonder what else might be wrong with those bankruptcy filings.
I’ve been concerned for some time that some of these document preparation outfits are dangerous. If you search this blog I believe you’ll find something from a while back where I was carrying on about such a service located in India which had contacted me and wanted to essentially use my name.
