India Footman

India Footman

I was hired by this client to file a chapter 7 bankruptcy in December 2015. Client had been making payments towards the retainer fee for at least 14 months. Upon receiving a very small down payment from client in December 2015, I immediately began working on client's bankruptcy. I successfully negotiated with client's financial institution for the surrender of certain collateral and retention of certain collateral although on cross-collaterized accounts. This is a services usually performed after the bankruptcy is filed but as a courtesy to the client, I immediately began negotiations since client had multiple items of collateral at stake of loss. Once an agreement was reached, I organized the surrender of the collateral and remained in contact with the financial institution for over a year regarding client's loans assuring the bank that client was still filing as the agreement to retain and surrender certain property was contingent on client actually filing bankruptcy. A week ago, client decided not to file and seem to think that since he did not move forward with the bankruptcy that the partial retainer fee paid was not earned although client has utilized my services for well over a year (much longer than the duration of a standard chapter 7 bankruptcy).