The Clerk's Offices of U.S. Bankruptcy Courts offer the bankruptcy community a plethora of services that often are underutilized and may be unknown to many constituencies. Many clerk's offices have adopted a customer-service approach in org…

The consumer creditor community recently received a gift from an unlikely source—the First Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case of Jamo v. Katahdin Federal Credit Union (In re Jamo), 1 the appeals court set aside the holding of the bankrup…

Last month, we looked at the history of Rousey v. Jacoway and began to consider the arguments of the debtors, the trustee and the amicus in light of the Third Circuit's decision in Clark v. O'Neill ( In re Clark), 711 F.2d 21 (3d Cir. 1983)…

The Tenth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's (BAP) recent decision in In re Mersmann, 318 B.R. 537 (10th BAP 2004), underscores the continuing tension between chapter 13 plan provisions discharging student loans, and implies that such dis…

In the past, traditional mortgage lenders automatically rejected people who had declared personal bankruptcy. Many potential homebuyers felt they must wait at least seven to 10 years after a bankruptcy to be eligible to become homeowners. M…

In late 2004, the U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) adopted a strategic plan 1 for 2005-10 that encompasses several critical goals: (1) protecting the integrity of the bankruptcy system, (2) promoting the effectiveness and efficiency of the syste…