Michael Bryan Fisher

I called Michael last year at a time of huge despair & anxiety for me & my wife. We were so far in debt, after years of multiple cancers plus other medical disasters & overall busted careers, that homelessness seemed a likely outcome. It seemed that even the smallest hopes which we had clung to ...in life had been wrecked. We were broken in body, mind, heart & spirit. We struggled to scrape together co-pays for my wife's most vitally necessary prescriptions. Creditors were calling all day long. Our marriage was ripping apart under the strain. As he himself said, the elements of Michael’s work with us were, in a certain sense, basic, but the combination added up impressively indeed. Michael insists that he is no miracle worker, but IMHO he is about the closest thing that the real world can offer on any given workday! First, he LISTENS with great care & attentiveness. His manner is wonderfully calm & kind-hearted. I cannot overstate how much of a difference his patient way of listening made from the very beginning, as we struggled to unpack for him our long, tangled & conflict-laden explanation of the mess that we were in. My manner & voice were heavy with fear, & more than a little anger, born of feelings of helpless desperation. My wife & I were in deep disagreement about how to proceed, including whether to file bankruptcy, & regarding what further losses we could each tolerate in pursuit of a possible remedy. Because Michael’s manner is unmistakably genuine, warm-hearted & good-humored, while being at the same time practical, sensible & efficient, he gently but effectively helped us to recover that kind of constructive, cooperative attitude ourselves, so that we soon became a team of three people working well together on a mutually beneficial & positive set of goals. Second, Michael is an excellent TEACHER & COACH. Everything regarding consumer debt, interest rates, collections, bankruptcy, negotiated settlements, etc was all very opaque & bewildering to me & my wife. Getting miserable, stressed-out people like us to follow explanations & properly take in info is hard indeed. Michael not only KNOWS HIS STUFF but deftly guided us with true grace from a starting point of being freaked-out-&-frantic & into a state of being informed, aware, & increasingly confident about making intelligent step-by-step choices in consultation with him. (It is no surprise that Michael devotes much of his non-lawyering time as “Coach Fish”, a successful & much-admired teacher & coach of various local hockey programs for young people!) Third, he is a very hard-working & persuasive ADVOCATE. Once my wife & I were clear that we wanted to pursue negotiated settlements with our creditors instead of bankruptcy, Michael helped us to set realistic goals & criteria which would most closely fit our values & needs, & which seemed to make the best strategic use of our available assets. Then he did the hard work of grinding through days, weeks & months of communications with each of our creditors in order to seek out & deal directly with only the real decision-makers at each of the firms to whom we owed well into six figures, all told. It was clear to us that Michael is truly excellent at 1. the dogged pursuit of people who aren’t much motivated on their own to negotiate with us at all 2. presenting our case & pitching our offer in the most cogent, persuasive way possible 3. negotiating tirelessly to get the best deal for us, while keeping to the guiding values & priorities which we had worked out together beforehand. The results greatly exceeded all possible expectations, Michael was truly a pleasure to work with, & our life & marriage are in better shape than ever. The bottom-line trade-offs in terms of speed, cost & hopes for rebuilding our creditworthiness, have turned out to be truly the right choices for us. CALL MICHAEL !!! You'll be glad you did!