Bankruptcy: costs of filing bankruptcy with attorney, versus cost of filing using Bankruptcy Petition Preparer.
Under
the current U.S. Bankruptcy Code or law, the system provides
essentially TWO basic categories of outside assistance that a debtor
filing for bankruptcy may use – assistance provided by an attorney, and
assistance provided by a non-lawyer. And both of these parties come
under what is called “Debt Relief Agents or Agencies.” Basically, the
non-attorney assistance provider, who also goes by a name such as
Bankruptcy Petition Preparer (BPP), preparers the documents upon which
bankruptcy is filed with the Court for bankruptcy processing, while the
attorney (or, more accurately, the help he hires that does such work)
prepares the same set of documents, EXCEPT that the lawyer
assistance-provider can supposedly give a debtor “legal advice,” and can
appear, on the debtor’s behalf, in the administrative hearing on the
bankruptcy case administered by the Court “Trustee” (who is not a Judge,
but a court-appointed administrator) that will oversee the bankruptcy
case.