Hacker News Reader

Comment by froindt | Hacker News Reader

Neat idea, thanks for sharing!

Are attorneys licensed in all the states they're reviewing documents to?

Playing devils advocate here. Do you have a vetting policy for whether filing for bankruptcy is a good idea, or encourage other steps to be taken by someone considering bankruptcy? Someone who is $2,000 behind on bills may be hurt more by the bad mark on their credit in the upcoming ~7 years. If they had some counseling on budgeting, debt payback could be realistic by digging in, taking on some marginal work, and reducing spending.

View on HN

Thanks so much! We agree that bankruptcy should be the last resort for everyone. That's why we only let people through who have over $10,000 in debt. We also have 100+ other substantive checks to stop people from using Upsolve if we're not the right service for them or if we don't think their bankruptcy will be successful. For example, we don't help homeowners because our system is not yet ready for more complex assets (like homes), and we think those users would be better served via full representation. Bankruptcy is a federal law with minimal state-by-state differences. Our in-house attorneys are NY-based and never provide legal advice. Whenever legal advice is required, we connect our users with someone in our network in the state where the user is filing.

> Bankruptcy is a federal law with minimal state-by-state differences.

Unfortunately you're mistaken. The Code itself is federal but the underlying debts and assets are always matters of state law. Exemptions: It depends. Moreover, various provisions of the Code are construed quite differently across the federal circuits. For example you're not getting your repo'd car back in the 11th circuit once the creditor takes possession peaceably, period.

Perhaps the substantive checks take care of these state-by-state differences?

The fact that they’re not handling people who own real estate simplifies things considerably and they have Attorney reviews to screen out the complicated cases (from what I gather). But yeah the basics of a no-asset Chapter 7 where the only secured debt is a car loan, I’d agree that state law variations are minimal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com