• Home
  • Bankruptcy in Brief
  • ABC’s of Bankruptcy
  • Considering Bankruptcy
  • True Stories
  • Chapter 13
  • Blog
  • About
  • TOC

Northern California Bankruptcy Lawyer

On The Bankruptcy Soapbox

The Soap Box
  • How bankruptcy works
  • Mortgage Matters
  • Consumer Rights
  • You & Your Lawyer
  • Small Business
  • Family Law

Closing Up Shop

By Cathy Moran

closing business

What can you do when it becomes obvious that your  business should close? The hardest part of being in business is recognizing when the business has no future and needs to close.  Yet the overwhelming majority of new businesses fail within 5 years. So you’re not alone.  In fact, in the face of the pandemic, […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Small business Tagged With: 2017

3 Things That Prevent You From Getting Out Of Debt

By Cathy Moran

getting out of debt

It’s not a bad economy, poor budgeting skills, or credit card interest that keep you from getting out of debt. It’s emotions, not reasons, keep people from filing bankruptcy and starting fresh. Even if Reason says that you’ll never pay your debts off in the usual way. Reason also says that paying old debt steals […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2016

Family Lawyer’s Cheat Sheet to Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

family lawyer in bankruptcy

Here, in a nutshell, are bankruptcy basics for family lawyers. This isn’t everything you need to know to navigate a dissolution where one spouse files bankruptcy, or when marital debts suggest both spouses should file. It’s a start to a complex issue. You can get the basic introduction to concepts and terms operative in bankruptcy […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Family Law Tagged With: 2021, divorce, family law

Bankruptcy Is Not Your Last Resort

By Cathy Moran

bankruptcy choice

Every personal finance guru intones that “bankruptcy is the last resort.” In my opinion, they have it wrong: bankruptcy is the big gun in getting out of a financial mess. But it shouldn’t be the last thing you try to get financially healthy. You shouldn’t mess around with lesser solutions if those solutions don’t do […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2017

Who Profits When Money Trouble Is Shameful?

By Cathy Moran

money troubles taboo

Talking about our financial troubles is taboo in this society. In fact, we are more willing to talk about our sex lives than our money troubles. We lionize those who make a fortune.  Everyone expects to live the middle class life. It becomes easy to think that something is wrong with you if you aren’t […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Consumer Rights Tagged With: debt settlement

How To Write A Contract Without A Lawyer & Make It Stick

By Cathy Moran

writing your own contract

Even in a world where people attempt almost any skilled task with the help of Google, YouTube, or Legal Zoom,  people continue to ask: is this contract legal? They aren’t asking (usually) whether the subject matter of the contract is permitted by law. They really want to know: will what I’ve written be enforceable. What makes it […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Small business Tagged With: draft contract

Reduce Your Tax Hit By Filing Bankruptcy Rather Than Settling Debts

By Cathy Moran

tax bite

Settle your debts outside of bankruptcy and you may be bitten by taxes you didn’t expect years later. Yet, everyone I talk to would rather cut a deal with their creditors than file bankruptcy.  It’s universal. But here’s the killer reason why bankruptcy alone protects homeowners from a unexpected  tax consequence down the road. Debt […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Consumer Rights, Taxes Tagged With: 2018, cancellation of debt tax

The Risks Of Filing Bankruptcy For Your Corporation

By Cathy Moran

risk of business bankruptcy

When your incorporated business fails,  the instinctive reaction is to file bankruptcy for the corporation. But a corporate bankruptcy comes with risk to the shareholders. I know you incorporated to separate yourself as the owner from the risks of the business.  As a separate legal “person”, the corporation is distinct from the individuals who own […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights

Stressed Families Can Take A Card From Trump Casino

By Cathy Moran

From our archives, but still on point: Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casino operation filed bankruptcy, following in the steps of his other entities. What does that mean to ordinary folk here on the West Coast struggling with bills and the grind of staying afloat month to month? Why does this bit of news show up […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Consumer Rights

When You Can’t Make Your Chapter 13 Payments

By Cathy Moran

going nowhere

When your wallet’s as flat as this tire and you can’t make your Chapter 13 plan payments, what do  you do? Chapter 13 promised a chance to reorganize, keep what’s important, and get out of a financial hole. But it just isn’t working. What now? In good lawyer style, I’ve got to tell you:  it […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2016

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • …
  • 20
  • Next Page »
Bankruptcy Basics

About The Soapbox

You’ve arrived at the Bankruptcy Soapbox, a resource of bankruptcy information and consumer law.

Soapbox is a companion site to Bankruptcy in Brief, where I try to be largely explanatory and even handed (Note I said “try”).

Here, I allow myself to tell stories and express strong opinions. We dig deeper into how to consider bankruptcy and navigate a bankruptcy case.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

How Bankruptcy Works

Cheat Sheet For Passing Bankruptcy Means Test

The bankruptcy means test has a fatal weakness in its attempt to keep people out of bankruptcy. Like so much recently, it's health care. It's health care, in the future, to be paid before your creditors get any money in your bankruptcy. It works because, in a logic that only Congress could employ, the means … Read more

More Posts from this Category

643 Bair Island Road
Suite 403
Redwood City, CA 94063
Phone: (650) 694-4700
Phone: (650) 368-4700

Categories

All content copyright © Moran Law Group. All rights reserved.