unemployed

Public defenders are only appointed in criminal cases. In a BK, the court is not going to provide free counsel.

You don't necessarily need an attorney though; you can file by yourself without an attorney, as long as you can fill the forms out right. It does cost about $330 just to file though.

If you don't think you can do it yourself there are some lawyers that do make payment arrangements. You may want to call around and see. We did that YEARS ago when we filed.

From what I was told, payment plans for chapter 7 are no longer permitted. They will not file until they get all the money.

With us we had to have the BK filing fee paid before he would file. Then he let us make payments on his fees.

That has changed puddlejmpr....apparently if the attorney is not paid before the BK is discharged, his debt bill can be discharged in he bankruptcy....so they dont take payments anymore. A least that it how it was explained to me.

can you make payments to the attorney prior to filing any paperwork???

Yes. There are a ton of attorneys that are willing to take payments. They will just wait to file once the fee is paid in full.