Suicide can be a tragic byproduct of the current financial and mortgage foreclosure crisis.  We have all heard of people jumping out of buildings in last century’s Great Depression.  But how many actual suicides or attempts at suicide have occurred because of today’s situation? 
At the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys annual convention in Chicago, [...]

Unfair and deceptive collection practices has become a concern of NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.  Cuomo has said he wants to halt harassing phone calls, frivolous lawsuit threats from collectors, and other practices which violate the law. His office has shut down one debt collection firm and has expanded a probe into twenty others. 
According to Adrienne Carter from [...]

You have a right to get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit reporting agencies.  Why haven’t you done it yet?
According to the 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey was released in Washington, DC on Tuesday by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), only one-third of those adults surveyed had ordered [...]

You can.  And maybe you should.
“No one should be confused about what a bankruptcy process means… [It] is not a sign of weakness…”  This is what President Barack Obama said today in discussing the fact that Chrysler is declaring bankruptcy.  Obama said that Chrysler’s bankruptcy was “…one more step on a clearly chartered path to Chrysler’s [...]

If you pay your credit card bills late, you are in good company.  Almost 58 million Americans admit they don’t pay their bills on time.  That is almost 26 percent of all adult Americans.
The 2009 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey was released in Washington, DC on Tuesday by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC).  The survey [...]

Diane Davis was sworn in as Bankruptcy Judge for the Northern District of New York, Utica Division on March 6, 2009. Judge Davis replaces Judge Stephen Gerling, who recently retired.  Judge Davis received her B.A. in Economics and German from St. Lawrence University in 1976 and her J.D. from Albany Law School in 1991. From [...]

A Central New York Bankruptcy Court ruled that Affordable Furniture Stores in Central New York must reopen to allow customers to pick up furniture that they had already paid for.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office had received three dozen complaints from people who had discovered the stores were closed in Syracuse, Utica, Rome and Watertown when [...]

You just got a few thousand dollars from your tax refund and you want to know what to do with it.  You know you will likely be filing for bankruptcy in the near future because you can’t keep up on your bills.  Does it matter what you do with your tax refund?  Yes it does.
If a [...]

Today, after 23 years as Bankruptcy Court Judge in the Northern District of New York, Utica Division, Judge Stephen D. Gerling retires from the bench.
Judge Gerling graduated from Niagara University in 1964 and received his law degree from St. John’s University in 1967. He served as a military police officer in Vietnam from 1968 [...]

I met with a potential bankruptcy client today who sold her home 6 months ago.  After paying the mortgage and closing costs, she walked away with a check for $17,000.
If she used that money to pay her living expenses, perhaps purchase some furniture, fix her car, buy an older car, or pay her moving expenses, [...]