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If you’re in over your head with student loans and are looking for help, you probably want the lawyer who knows the most.
Someone who’s been practicing law for awhile would be a good idea. Definitely someone who’s got experience working through tough student loan issues.
But student loan law is a relatively new name for the field, with lawyers cropping up over the past few years to tackle the issues confronting those who have been beaten down by the educational finance system.
Many of have come up through the ranks of consumer bankruptcy, debt collection harassment, and lawsuit defense work. They’ve worked for years to hone their craft, and have brought those skills to the table of student loan resolution.
They’ve got white knowledge. And it makes the difference between a competent student loan lawyer and one who can really knock it out of the park by finding every possible option for you.
What Is White Knowledge?
I first heard the term white knowledge in the book Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. In it, he mentions the term as being, “like white noise, only more useful.” And the more I thought of it, the more I realized that it’s the thing that we’re all looking for when we hire someone to help us out with a problem.
When I take my car into a mechanic, I want him or her to back able to stick a hand into the engine compartment and instinctively know where to find a particular hose or wire.
My dentist should be able to look in my mouth, see I haven’t been in a dental chair for awhile, and instinctively reach for the dental scaler.
An accountant should be able to punch numbers into a calculator without looking down at it.
That’s white knowledge. It’s information acquired without effort, as if by osmosis and sheer exposure to a field.
It’s a level of understanding borne of constant practice, and it’s where your lawyer adds value to the process.
You can’t teach it, at least not in the classroom. It’s assimilated into the brain, the heart and the bloodstream.
What Does A Lawyer Look Like With White Knowledge?
When your lawyer:
- understands the ways in which bankruptcy works in the real world (even if you can’t wipe out your student loan debts)
- can quote sections of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act by heart
- can reach into his or her hard drive for a variety of samples of discovery requests for student loan lawsuit defense cases
- can flip through a Pooling and Servicing Agreement and instinctively understand the roles of the parties to a student loan securitization scheme
That’s all white knowledge.
White Knowledge Sees Solutions Without Blinders
The lack of this exceptional (and unteachable) skill is why so many bankruptcy lawyers hear about student loan debt and say, “nope, can’t help you.”
And why many collection defense lawyers shake their heads and tell you there’s no defense to a student loan case.
They know one field of law to the exclusion of all others. If your problem doesn’t fit neatly into their preconceived notions of what can and cannot be done then you’re shown the door.
For some fields of law, that’s fine – but not when it comes to student loan lawyers. We’re operating at the crossroads of a number of different legal and regulatory systems, providing solutions that didn’t exist even a few years ago.
It’s a minefield of complexities, and a lack of white knowledge could mean the difference between relief and continued frustration.
If you’re looking for a student loan lawyer, you’re going to need to take some time to get the right one. But if you look closely, you’ll be able to spot the one who’s got white knowledge.
And when you do, stop looking for help. Because if there’s a solution out there, that lawyer will be able to find it for you.
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If you are expecting to receive a tax refund before filing bankruptcy you may be able to spend it wisely without causing legal headaches. There are a few actions to consider when it comes to using your refund before you file and this includes reviewing your intentions with your bankruptcy attorney. You can get further […]
Your bankruptcy lawyer’s constant requests for information probably frustrate you.
Once you’ve gotten past the whole, “should I or shouldn’t I,” stage of things, you think it will go pretty quickly. Not so.
In fact, the major chunk of your bankruptcy lawyer’s work is done before the court gets involved.
There are income and expense statements to be provided, financial disclosures to be made, and asset valuations to be completed (that collection of coffee tables books? Yup, we need to figure out how much they’re worth).
We need to account for your financial life in the time leading up to when your bankruptcy case is filed.
And once that’s done, we need to review your debts – all of them – to make sure we time things perfectly.
File No Bankruptcy Before Its Time
Back in the 1970s there was a television commercial for Paul Masson wine. In it, the actor proclaims that the company, “will sell no wine before its time.”
The point was that things needed to be perfect before the wine was released to the public.
So, too, with bankruptcy.
File too soon and you’re taking a risk that things won’t turn out the way you’d hoped.
Wait too long and there’s a chance that you will have wasted precious time in your quest to get out of debt.
Information Needs To Be Fresh
Your income for bankruptcy purposes has to reflect the money you’ve made over the past six months. That means you’ve got to have your most recent paystubs and income information, as well as the current value of what you own (including bank account balances).
If we need to wait to file your bankruptcy case, your information may get stale. In fact, it gets stale every month.
Stale information isn’t useful when it comes to your bankruptcy.
We, As Bankruptcy Lawyers, Repeat Ourselves
Every month until your bankruptcy case is filed brings with it a fresh request for information.
Paystubs. Operating reports for your business. Bank account statements.
It annoys you to have to send us documents every month.
It makes us feel bad to ask you for the same things over and over again, but we’ve got no choice.
We’re On Your Side
We could file your bankruptcy case immediately, but sometimes it’s just not possible.
Timing is important to ensure that you’re protected, and that we get it right the first time.
Part of the reason you hire us is because you respect our opinion and trust our base of knowledge.
Let’s keep working together to make your bankruptcy case a smooth and successful process.
During tax season the question often arises regarding discharged debt and whether it has to be claimed as income on federal income taxes. This widely depends on whether the creditor acknowledges discharged debt as being canceled debt. If this is the case debtors may receive a 1099c form from the creditor to include when they […]
In the last article I touched briefly on whether or not you could continue to make payments on property used as collateral without having to reaffirm the debt with the lender. To understand your options with regard to personal property used as collateral, I will be using the example of a car loan.The post What To Do With Property Used As Collateral During Your Bankruptcy appeared first on Tucson Bankruptcy Attorney.
The 2015 federal budget is proposing deep cuts to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. It’s time to make your voice heard.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program allows federal student loan borrowers to wipe out these loan balances after 10 years if they work for a qualifying public service employer.
Qualifying employment is any employment with a federal, state, or local government agency, entity, or organization or a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Certain private not-for-profit employers may be eligible as well if it provides certain public services.
For the purpose of PSLF, it doesn’t matter what type of employment you perform with the organization. That means the Chief of Neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center will qualify for PSLF, but so will the janitor at City Hall.
Direct Loans and Direct Consolidation Loans are the only federal student loans eligible for PSLF.
How The 2015 Federal Budget Will Impact Public Service Loan Forgiveness
The President’s 2015 budget will limit Public Service Loan Forgiveness to $57,500. That doesn’t seem to be a problem at first blush because the number corresponds to the maximum federal loan amount that an undergraduate can take out. But look deeper and you’ll see the problem.
Many of the positions with public service employers require (or at least strongly encourage) graduate educations. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants and social workers are just some of the people who have graduate degrees. With the maximum amount of federal student aid for graduate degrees capped at $138,500 (including the $57,500 in undergraduate limits), it’s easy to see that the most highly-educated professionals will no longer be eligible for PSLF under the proposed 2015 budget.
Those Changes Will Impact Who Goes Into Public Service
Many highly employed people choose public service in part because of the ability to get relief from federal student loan debts after a decade of service. They sacrifice a good chunk of their prime earning years for the public good, and many remain in public service once their decade is completed.
If PSLF is limited, those with graduate degrees won’t find public service quite as compelling. They’re more likely to opt for better-paying jobs in the private sector, which will hurt our public service infrastructure.
At the same time, those who are already in public service jobs – teachers, medical personnel, and other important professionals – are going to lose the benefit of the bargain they struck when they took their jobs. They have been working at wages below the private sector with the expectation that they’ll be eligible for federal student loan relief down the line. For many, that simply won’t be the case.
How You Can Help
There’s an online petition as whitehouse.gov to support those who work to help you. Click here and let your voice be heard.
You should also get in touch with your elected representatives and let them know that you oppose any attempts to limited PSLF.
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A California man gets 17 years in prison for hiding assets in his divorce and bankruptcy cases. Steven K. Zinnel, 50, a former Gold River businessman split from his wife back in 1999 but tensions between them made the divorce even more difficult to deal with. Soon after filing divorce, Zinnel filed bankruptcy and claimed […]
Protecting Your Assets In A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Filing There are two main goals in filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy. The first goal is to eliminate as much debt as possible in order to get a fresh start. The second goal is to protect either all or as much of your personal property as possible+ Read MoreThe post Protecting Your Assets In A Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Filing appeared first on David M. Siegel.
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