People that come to see me usually fall into two camps. Both camps have worked hard their entire life, paid their bills, and taxes, possibly fought for our country, and want to do the right thing. Given the rise in Bankruptcy filings, word of mouth has gotten out and people are more apt to be proactive than they were in the past. People generally fall into two camps:

One camp is those folks who are not late on a single payment and have a perfect credit score. They want to continue paying their Mortgage, car payments, credit cards, and medical bills, but they know they do not have much longer before the funds will run out. They are at a fork in the road, when do they fish or cut bait?

The other camp involves people that have found it too painful even to call an attorney for help. They have been putting off addressing debt issues for a while in the hope that things will turn around for them. They may have exhausted their IRAs, retirement funds, and their children’s college funds, and liquidated all their assets. The creditors begin to call them, default notices arrive in their mailbox, a process server delivers a summons to their front door and they don’t know where to turn or what to do next. Some fear jail. Knowledge is a great stress reliever. Use that phone call to get informed.