Nikhil J Chawla

My wife and I were struggling financially thru most of 2009 and credit cards started reducing limits, 2 in particular set our credit limit to just above our current balance. Struggling to pay all bills, we were forced to pay the minimum payment on these 2 CC accounts, and it wasn’t but a few months o...f minimum payments that the interest charges and a late fee forced the balance over our limit. They started demanding money we didn’t have to get current and under our limit. Then we began getting daily phone calls from the collection depts., which interrupted my wife’s sleep as she works a graveyard shift. As we thought things couldn’t get worse, I found myself virtually out of work. Now everything was beginning to pile up including the 1st and 2nd we had on a house that was no longer worth what we owed on it Not sure what we were going to do, a friend referred us to a Bankruptcy Attorney in Carlsbad. After an initial consultation and being told that we could do a Chapter 13 with a Lien Strip and remove our 2nd mortgage. We decided to file a Chapter 13 with this law office in Jan. 2010. The debt collection phone calls and mail stopped within a week. Kristin Lamar and Nik Chawla (now New Chapter Law Group) were assigned to our bankruptcy case. We were very impressed at how comfortable we felt and how well things were explained on our 1st meeting with Ms. Lamar. Also impressive, Ms. Lamar was prompt to answer any questions we had whether via email or phone. We met Mr. Chawla in San Diego at the courthouse where he represented us before the Bankruptcy Trustee. The trustee had an issue with something and Mr. Chawla submitted that made everything satisfactory. Eventually something happened that caused both Ms. Lamar and Mr. Chawla to part ways with the Law Office that we had hired. We were given the choice to remain with the Law Office or go with Ms. Lamar and Mr. Chawla. We discussed it and decided it would be in our best interest to stay with Ms. Lamar and Mr. Chawla since they were handling our case and were familiar with it and us… so we informed the concerned parties as to our decision. We received an email from the main attorney of the law office we had hired and it basically said, “Excellent”. We were then quite concerned that he had just pocketed all the money we had paid him minus what he had paid Ms. Lamar, Mr. Chawla and others that had worked on our case. We relayed our concerns about this to Ms. Lamar, she pretty much acknowledged that was what happened, but not to worry, they would finish as our attorneys. I’ve since had a couple of questions with the latest regarding bankruptcy, Taxes and a 1099-C (cancelation of debt) and as in the past, Ms. Lamar was fast to reply to my questions. In wrapping up, New Chapter Law Group successfully cut our outgoing bills due to debt tremendously by wiping out our credit card debt, an old hospital bill and our 2nd mortgage. I’m just a house painter, not a contractor, and my wife works at the hospital… we are average working class people and not making a ton of money. Bankruptcy helped to give us a fresh start in these financially stressed times. I highly recommend that you consider Bankruptcy if you are in dire straits financially, it was nowhere as scary as we originally thought it was going to be. If you’re considering Bankruptcy and have questions, contact New Chapter Law Group and get them answered…. and if you should happen to decide that bankruptcy is right for you, I would HIGHLY recommend New Chapter Law Group to handle your case. Michael F Oceanside, CA