Secrets for Increasing Your Chapter 13 No-Look FeeSponsored by 720 System Strategies|Presented by John Orcutt and Philip Tirone
7 Proofs You May Need When Arguing in Favor of Higher No-Look Fees
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Be prepared to submit evidence. Here are seven key proofs you should compile so that you are fully prepared to convince a judge to increase the No-Look fees in your area.
- Compile data from your Chapter 13 trustees on how little you end up being paid, as opposed to what the judges approve. This is easy for Chapter 13 trustees to pull up on either of the two main systems all Chapter 13 trustee use: BAS or EPIC.
- Ask for a report showing a list of all Chapter 13 cases closed in the last 12 month, including both confirmed and not confirmed cases, which includes the following data in Excel or .csv format:
- Name of debtor
- Case no.
- Date closed
- Total fees approved
- Total fees paid
- From this report, you can figure out the following:
- Percentage of fees approve that were actually paid.
- Average amount paid per case (to compare to your No-Look fee).
- See Documents 10-13 and 22-25.
- Ask for a report showing a list of all Chapter 13 cases closed in the last 12 month, including both confirmed and not confirmed cases, which includes the following data in Excel or .csv format:
- List all the consumer debtor attorneys who have left in the last five years, or who are about to leave the practice.
- Ask long-term in practice, older attorneys, trustees, U.S. Trustees, and/or judges.
- Look for group photos of your Consumer Debtor Bankruptcy Bar from years past, and “X” out those who are gone.
- Get lists from old correspondence sent out by the clerk of court or trustees, as, for instance, sent out with regard to announcements.
- Look around the courtroom. It is almost all “gray hairs” on the consumer debtor side of things.
- List how few new attorneys have joined the Consumer Debtor Bankruptcy Bar.
- Pull up calendars
- Notice that most of the younger ones work for creditor representation as firms.
- Get testimonials or quotes as to why Chapter 11 attorneys don’t do Chapter 13, and how high the No-Look fee would have to be to entice them to do so.
- If available, total the Chapter 13 billings from attorneys who bill everything on an hourly basis.
- Use PACER
- Identify attorneys at NACBA.
- If you keep paper files, show judges the size of some completed files. We did this back in 2015.
- Lists all the things you have to perform in Chapter 13.
- See Documents 4 and 5.
- See Bankruptcy Processing & Signing Checklist.
- See List of Services Routinely Provided in Chapter 13.