Frequently Asked Questions
If you have additional questions or questions specific to your situation, please Contact Us.
How Does YourLegalMeans Save Me Time and Get My Life Back?
We will save your bankruptcy law firm time by taking on the time intensive tasks of drafting the bankruptcy petition, researching and collecting due diligence supporting data, phone follow-up with debtor(s) (with your approval), and filing the petition with the court (with your approval).
This frees you and your staff to concentrate on growing your practice and managing a higher volume of clients.
We save our clients an average of 8-10 hours of office time per debtor, increase profits by an average of 45%, and reduce debtor calls to the law firm by up to 76%.
How Does the Bankruptcy Petition Process Work?
To view our step-by-step process, see the Petition Process page, but in summary, download our Client Intake Forms, have your next bankruptcy client completely them fully, review the completed for missing information, and get them to us along with the credit counseling certificates (CCC), and the last 6 (six) full months of income paystubs or proof of income documentation, along with any other due diligence and documentation you have collected from the debtor(s).
Once we have all of these critical pieces of information for the case, one of our bankruptcy petition specialist (virtual bankruptcy assistants) will contact you to review the details of the debtor(s)’ situation and how you want to approach the case before we begin drafting the bankruptcy petition.
If we haven’t already established an appropriate fee, this will also need to be determined and agreed upon before we can begin working on the petition.
When the initial draft of the bankruptcy petition has completed, (typically within 24-48 business hours), we will send the draft to you along with a cover page summary and any particulars you may need to be aware of (e.g., Means Test results, DMI income, potential issues/problems etc.), all of which you can review it at your convenience.
When you have had an opportunity to review the petition and supporting due diligence collected, we will make any changes or updates to the petition that you require, and get it back to you.
Optionally, we can also ECF file your bankruptcy petitions with the court using your ECF account.
How Long Does it Take to Draft a Bankruptcy Petition?
Once we have all of the necessary documentation to begin drafting a bankruptcy petition, YourLegalMeans typically completes the initial draft of petitions within 24-48 business hours.
Before we can begin drafting any bankruptcy petition, we must have all of the following pieces of information:
- Fully completed Client Intake Forms (CIF) – No fields left blank
- Credit counseling certificate(s) (CCC)
- Six (6) FULL months of income paystubs or other proof of income
- The most recent paystub or other proof of income (if the most recent is not include in the six (6) full months)
We request that the CIF be reviewed for missing information that needs to be collected prior to sending the case to us for drafting the bankruptcy petition, as missing information from the CIF will require additional time to collect and will affect the turnaround time for the initial draft of the petition.
The only exception to the above is the drafting of a skeletal/emergency petition that needs to be filed with the court immediately.
What About Emergency Situations?
We understand the urgency of emergency petitions, and will accommodate these situations as they arise.
Please be aware however, that an additional emergency fee may apply when emergency situations do occur.
Is Outsourcing Our Law Firm’s Bankruptcy Petition Preparation Sharing Fees?
No. We are paid by your law firm, NOT by the debtor(s).
Outsourcing your bankruptcy petition preparation work to a bankruptcy paralegal is no different than having an employee draft petitions in your office. Your Legal Means is providing your law firm the same service.
What About Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) Issues?
YourLegalMeans is an independent business that works under the direction of attorneys and law firms nationwide.
All contact and communication that we have with your clients is done under your direction, and we only do so to obtain information that you have approved and that directly applies to the debtor(s)’ bankruptcy case.
Your client(s) will clearly be informed that we are not an attorneys, that we are calling on your behalf, only to obtain information needed to complete their bankruptcy documents for the court.
When clients ask questions (which they always do), we remind them that we are not attorneys and can’t answer their question, but will be happy to pass their questions along to you, their attorney.
Any email communication we have with your clients will include a copy of the email to you.
How does YourLegalMeans Protect My Client’s Personal Information?
Please review our Privacy Policy.
Is your Bankruptcy Petition Work Guaranteed?
Most definitely! We give you our Satisfaction Guarantee.
We just ask that if you are ever unhappy with anything for any reason, that we be afforded the opportunity to make it right.
Please note that any petition or document prepared by YourLegalMeans that is filed with the court constitutes your satisfaction with our services.