Whenever you are ready to go ahead, come in to see us. We will not open a file for you until our engagement letter has been signed and you have made a non-refundable deposit to conflict us out from representing your creditors or other parties in interest. If you would like to pay monthly, we are willing to accept payments. This will delay, however, the actual filing of the bankruptcy petition.

When you come back with your initial payment, we will give you a receipt and paperwork to fill out. It is not the court paperwork. We do the court paperwork. The paperwork we give you will be necessary so that we can do the court paperwork. It will be divided into essentially two categories. The first category are your assets. The second set of information we need relates to your creditors. We will need a list of every single creditor that you have. The list must include their name, address, zip code, account number, if you have one, and an approximate balance owed on the account. It is not necessary that the credit card account balance be absolutely correct. It is very important that you be careful in the preparation of your list of creditors. If you leave a creditor off, they will not get notice. If they do not get notice, the debt may not get wiped out in some situations
If, after signing your bankruptcy petition, you find that a creditor or asset has been omitted from your schedules or statement of financial affairs, as long as your case is still open, which it will be for five months or so, we can amend your schedules to add that creditor for a nominal fee.  Failure to schedule an asset is serious business if it is discovered before you have amended your schedules. Let us know as soon as you discover any errors or omissions in your schedules or statement of financial affairs.

After you bring your paperwork back to us, give us seven business days after you have finished paying to prepare your actual court papers, petitions, schedules, etc. We will then set up a time for you and/or you to come in and sign the papers. You will be in the office for about an hour and a half. There will be a great deal to sign, initial, go over, etc. You will be signing the petition under penalties of federal perjury. We will correct any errors or omissions you find when you meet with us to go over the petition.

After you have signed all of the paperwork, we will file it on our next batch filing day, generally around the 15th of every month. Sarasota County is filed up in Tampa at the United States Bankruptcy Court. Once your papers are received by the court, the court will enter an order that stops your creditors from calling you, suing you, and anything else. Because the court system has over a million bankruptcies going through it each year, it will take the court three or four weeks to get the notice out to your creditors. However, your bankruptcy is effective once it is filed. Because your creditors will not know about your bankruptcy for three or four weeks, they may continue to call you. If they do, keep my business card next to the phone. If they call, tell them "Please call our lawyer, Edward F. Brunicardi.  Our fee covers everything in a standard bankruptcy, including handling those phone calls. Do not waste your time trying to explain it to them.

In conclusion, you will feel as though a burden has been lifted from your shoulders. Once this burden of oppressive debts is lifted from your shoulders, you will feel as though you have had a fresh start, which was the Congressional purpose for enacting the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978.