After the initial consultation and you’ve decided to become a LeverLaw client you need to sign a retainer agreement and make some payment on a flexible payment plan. We then need to make an appointment. We begin production of your case based upon what was gathered in the initial consultation and what will be supplemented by our requests between retention of our firm and the first working appointment. When you then meet with us for your first working appointment we have a decent, but rough draft of your documents.
We then work together to increase the accuracy and completeness of those documents at the appointment. We also track how we’re progressing towards executing the strategy that we decided upon when we initially discussed your case. In some instances, that strategy may evolve as we go into production of your case and focus on the myriad details involved in your case.
How many appointments it will take to prepare your case for filing, and when the appointments are scheduled depends on several factors. Those factors include:
- The complexity of your case. More complexity means more details to be examined and possibly even complications that have to be resolved.
- Strategic concerns. Sometimes it is better to wait to file. Determining the petition date is one of the main strategic considerations that a debtor can control.
- Your financing of the case. We offer flexible payment plans, but since we are discharged too we need to have the case fully financed in the case of Chapter 7 cases before we file. Most Chapter 13 cases are at least partially financed postpetition in the plan.
- Contingencies. Sometimes filing is contingent on an event that depends on the actions of a third party.
We always need to have an appointment on file between the time you retain LeverLaw and the time we file the case. After filing the case the court’s schedule drives our workflow so we don’t need to create an “artificial” workflow by making appointments. Prepetition, however, appointments are the workflow drivers and keep us on schedule with the production of your case to meet your goals.
Appointments can be in our offices in the World Trade Center in downtown Long Beach, or they can be wherever you have privacy and high speed internet access. Using internet technology and the telephone we can review your documents and make just as much progress in your case as if we were physically present in the same room.
In working with LeverLaw there are aspects in which to be reactive and in which to be proactive. In preparing the documents, we will tell you exactly what we need, so you can be reactive. In getting advice from the attorney, however, you need to bring up the issues that might be important while you’re preparing a bankruptcy case. For that, you need to proactively ask questions, especially where money, property, debt, income and expenses are concerned.
We make extensive use of emails both to communicate and compile a database of facts about your case. You will find us highly responsive to your questions and concerns during the preparation of your case.
Our consistency and responsiveness in partnering with you is key to forging the kind of relationship we want to have with you as our client. We provide the structure and the expertise to make bankruptcy a less risky and more rewarding process. You provide the facts, documents, full participation and candor necessary to make your case a success. Together we use LeverLaw as a platform for your fresh start and put you on the road to financial independence.
