Bankruptcy: Pros and Cons with its Alternatives

Declaring bankruptcy is when your debts are unmanageable or facing foreclosure. It is a legal process judged by federal bankruptcy courts. A court proceeding in which a judge and court trustee examine the assets and liabilities of individuals and businesses with debts so oppressive that they have become unable to repay. 

 

 Bankruptcy is a complex process involving rigid rules and regulations that govern bankruptcy proceedings. 

  

 Who declares themselves Bankrupt? 

  

 Bankruptcy is generally considered the final solution for people who have far more debts and see no way to pay their bills.  

 In 2019, 70% of the bankruptcy cases were from real estate companies. The filers owed $116 billion and had assets of $83.6 billion. This is surprising to know that individuals are filing for bankruptcy cases, not businesses. They owe money for a mortgage, credit card debt, auto loan, or student loan and don’t have the income to pay for it. 

  

  

Pros and Cons of Bankruptcy 

  

 Below are some of the Pros of filing for bankruptcy 

  

 1. Granting Full Discharge
 

 Discharge means the debts are forgiven, and the individual is no longer responsible for them. If individuals have been unable to pay your bills, they may be able to have these debts legally waived.  

  

 Another alternative is to file for Chapter 13, which allows them to reorganize the debts and consolidate them into a single monthly payment.  

  

  

2. Granting an Automatic Stay 

  

  If you are granted an automatic stay, it means the creditors will not be able to chase payments or take actions against the payee until the bankruptcy is discharged or a repayment plan is finalized. 

 

 3. Appointment of Representative 

  

 A trustee is appointed who will closely examine the case until the case is disposed of. They act as catalysts, handling all the communication between payee and creditor. 

  

 4. Prevention Against Further Legal Action 

 It would prevent future legal trouble that is related to the non-payment of the debt. 

  

 5. Give a fresh start

Bankruptcy can potentially provide a much-needed clean chit to rebuild your financial life and healthily re-establish your credit. 

  

 Below are some of the Cons of filing for bankruptcy 

  

 1. Heavy Costs: 

 Filing for bankruptcy is a highly expensive affair. With filing fees, bankruptcy trustees fees, credit counseling fees, and attorney fees, they can really add up the bankruptcy cost. 

  

 2. Lengthy Process

A Chapter 7 bankruptcy is quite quick and typically discharges within a few months, whereas Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a much longer process. Filing for bankruptcy can last for more than 10 years. Significantly it becomes more challenging to secure a loan in the future. 

3. Loss of Business 

 If you have owned a business and the trustee can determine its value, they can be forced to sell them. In some instances, the trustee may operate the business until its sale. 

  

 4. Drop in your credit score

There could be a significant drop in your credit card score. 

  

 5. Loose value of assets 

 The equity of the assets like home, car, and other items are lost.  

  

 
Alternatives to Bankruptcy 

 The coronavirus pandemic has affected business in many ways, but they still make moves to protect their financial future. Filing for bankruptcy will erase many bills. Bankruptcy might be a good option when one is clashing with debts. 

  

 Credit/Debt Counselling & Debt Management Plans 

 Debt counseling is the best way to manage your debts. The debt management plan helps make regular payments to the credit counseling company, making payments on your behalf to the creditors. 

Debt Settlement 

Debt settlement may be an option If the debt is severely controllable. In debt settlement  

 Creditors can forgive a portion of the debt, whereas, in debt management plans, the entire debt needs to pay off.  

  

 Liquidating Assets 

 Selling or liquidating an asset allows us to pay off the debts quickly and easily.  
 

Debt Consolidation Loan 

 Get hassle-free payments to several creditors using debt consolidation loans. A home equity loan is a way to repay creditors. 

 

Conclusion 

  

 Bankruptcy only after they pursue debt management, debt consolidation loan, and most people consider liquidating Assets. These options can help them resolve all the finances back on track and won't negatively impact your credit score. Regardless of what type of debt relief to choose, always take better care of your credit immediately by putting simple, responsible, credit-positive actions into practice. 

You can consider Legal Support World - a reputed Legal Process Outsourcing firm, providing legal support service services to lawyers and law firms across the globe since 2008.

  

 

Remote Working: The Future of Law Firms!

 Many organizations have ventured down the Digital Transformation route to refine work operations to improve work potency and safety.  The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the need for new remote operating policies and protocols, offices to go virtual for a long time, and more.  

 Currently, now is the time for “virtual law firms” 

 

Virtual law firms seem to witness exponential growth within the future, and all the legal work operations must go online. We have a tendency to live in an exceedingly convergent world wherever the digital revolution paves a wave. 

Eventually, this transformation can facilitate elite companies’ transition to virtual law companies.  

 

Recent technological developments in machine learning, AI, and different technological advancements facilitate the terrible foundations of the way legal support services are practiced and delivered. 

 

According to a Forbes report, there was an astounding increase in investment up to 713% in the legal tech sector in 2018. That shows swift consolidation inside the Legal and technical school sector. Now, clients do not visit a lawyer’s office as they simply use a video, phone, or text option for communicating. E-signing is another major positive of remote working since courts have agreed to accept documents that are e-filed, e-served, and e-signed. Remote and virtual hearings are the “new normal”. Handshakes are creating taboos; entire deals are being negotiated and closed virtually.  

 

Alarming law firms' rates lead to in-house legal advisers being self-contained as a result of clients wanting immediate litigation services. To contemplate these points, organizations mitigate themselves against compliance hazards and draft new plans of actions to curb challenges like cloud security. 

 

Technology has had a colossal impact on the manner we have a tendency to live, work, and manage business processes. Law firms follow technology-powered models that can meet business demands and provide clients with extraordinary expertise to tackle the challenges they face. Besides, technology has also accelerated legal delivery’s transformation to promote efficiency. 

 

 

Reasons for the increase of virtual law firms: 

 

1. Thanks to the pandemic, lawyers are compelled to work from home, usually for the first time in their careers. They found this new tradition effective because it helped them avoid long commutes and enhance the work potency. 

 

2. Work from home flexibility makes their work-life balance sorted. 

 

3. Traditional law firms charge heavy fees from their clients. Clients get relief as they get individual attention from lawyers at affordable prices and cause less potential conflict issues. 

 

 

There is no doubt the coronavirus pandemic is gearing up the virtual law office trends. In May 2020, when the United States supreme courts reopened for business, they created a historical moment of hearing oral arguments over the phone. Supreme Court Justices are embracing the tech and moving with the times. 

 

 

Conclusion: 

 

Whether you’re firmly settled in your brick-and-mortar law workplace or are already a savvy virtual professional person, the time has returned. And that too, with several accessible technologies that will modernize the manner of managing your work operations and interacting along with your clients. 

 

 

Top Ways to Improve Your Legal Research Task!

 Legal Research and Writing is one of the most important aspects of legal proceedings. Without this, lawyers cannot start their case, but it is a much time-consuming and labor-intensive process than other legal works. 

Here are the best ways lawyers can follow to handle Legal Research and Writing jobs better.

Understanding the Legal Questions: It is vital first to understand the type of legal research from the present scenario. Here are some useful points you may observe during legal research.

• Read what you are given thoroughly.
• After reading, analyze the given facts and frame answers.
• Evaluate what you know and need to learn new.
• Create a final list of potential terms.

Types of Sources: This is the 2nd important step to improve research. There are three sources for lawyers to make their work smooth and flawless, primary research, secondary research, and tertiary research. Depending upon the case, lawyers choose the best source that is much helpful for them. Usually, secondary sources are more useful and time-saving sources than the other two. It mainly includes the given below points:

• Give basics of every particular area of law.
• Understanding the key terms of an area.
• Identify essential case clues.

Recognize the Limits of Free Research Services: This is one of the best ways when you are under pressure to control costs. In this, lawyers can get massive research sources for free for a long time. There are many features and are useful for small cases, but some valuable features may be missing for long and time-taking cases. Lawyers may be using this type of source only for the cases which are restricted for costs.  

These points mentioned above are useful for lawyers to improve their Legal Research, making it easy for them to quickly win a case. If you are overburdened with various cases, then you can take help from a third-party Legal Service Provider and focus on delivering quality services to your clients within the set time. You can consider Legal Support World - a reputed Legal Process Outsourcing firm, providing legal support service services to lawyers and law firms across the globe since 2008.

How to Get Relief from Stressful Personal Injury Litigation?

Litigation often brings a high level of stress to attorneys. Also, their job is challenging; for example, if they lack at some point, it becomes difficult to convince clients why they are losing the case, especially in case of personal injury litigation. There are several ways attorneys can get relief from the stressful personal injury litigation process: The best way for attorneys to get rid of stress during the litigation process is to hire an expert or an outsourcing service provider, which helps attorneys relieve work stress. The British Government’s Ministry of Justice will introduce the whiplash reforms in April 2021. Solo, busy lawyers, and law firms can take expert guidance and personal injury litigation support from reliable third-party legal outsourcing firms that keep themselves updated about all reforms done to different laws and regulations

The areas where lawyers can get help from professionals are given below: 

1. Financial Compensation

Personal injury lawyers help people who have sustained injuries in accidents and help them to recover financial compensation. It is one of the difficult tasks to manage, get money, and make a report. There are professionals specialized in law, knowing everything about injuries and wrongdoings. So it is better to take help from experts and save your time, and simultaneously work for other clients. 

2. Representation in Courts 

The majority of personal injury cases are settled without a trial or even before a lawsuit is filed. The need for a lawyer grows in case the insurance company denies the claim or individuals need to recover their claim. Lawyers are usually occupied with lots of tasks, and hence it is difficult for them to debate with insurance companies. Here, the best option is to hire an expert who will prepare documents and further deal with the insurers on personal injury lawyers' behalf. Thus, these experts make things easy for attorneys, helping them eliminate stress and perform better in courts. 

3. Get Connected with Medical Providers

If you do not have a relation with your area's medical officers, you can again get help from experts as they have been working for many years. They usually have good relationships with insurance companies, medical officers, etc. They also have greater experience in comprehending severe injuries, and they can recommend reliable medical specialists who have provided superb results in previous cases. The reasons mentioned above are enough to hire an expert. With these legal experts' help, attorneys can give their clients the best result in the personal injury litigation process.

Legal Support Services – The Ladder to Success for Lawyers and Law Firms

Most of the lawyers usually remain occupied with the goal of becoming successful, but due to the shortage of time, they often face difficulties in achieving their goals. Lawyers find it hard to cope with the rise in litigation cases, and they usually don’t have enough time to fulfill the requirements of all the clients solely; this is one of the barriers to their success.

If they get free from the core legal activities, then they can make strategies for their success and work on them. Thus, for lawyers and law firms, the real path to business expansion, growth, and profitability lies in outsourcing legal support services. Today, the LPO industry is almost as big in size and turnover as the legal industry.

 If lawyers want to reach their objective of exponential growth in the industry, they might want to opt for outsourcing legal back-office functions as they are the ladder to success. To make their business more successful, they can outsource the below-mentioned tasks to reliable outsourcing partners and make themselves free from the core activities.

Legal Research:

Legal research, though sounds simple, is not an easy job. It is the backbone of each and every case because, without any research, lawyers are not able to start proceedings of their cases. This is a more time-consuming task than others. There are lots of problems lawyers face while doing research such as

i) Legal process interpretation, which means a wrong interpretation can result in research not relevant to the case.

ii) The most crucial stage of legal research is the beginning of a case because all the facts and doctrines of the case are explored carefully.

So, lawyers can outsource their research tasks to a reliable partner and start working on the strategies for the growth of their law firm.

Contract Management:

Most of the law firms have to deal with thousands of contracts, and lawyers have to go through all of them with a complete focus, they don't get time for anything else. Besides, the contract management life cycle contains seven stages, such as contract creation, contract review, contract approval, contract execution, etc. Reliable third-party partners have the expertise to carry out these functions effectively not only in the beginning but during the entire contract management life cycle. To increase your law firm profitability and for success, lawyers can even look for specialized outsourcing agencies that match their primary area of activities in law.

Document Summarization: 

This is another task that lawyers can outsource. This task is also labor-intensive and vital for every case. It includes the preparation of documents, deposition summaries, reviewing the document database with definitive points, and some specific issues.

Concluding all said above, outsourcing might be the best way for lawyers and law firms to provide higher value to their clients on time and become more prosperous within a limited period. Moreover, it is also beneficial to increase profitability.

7 ways to protect your business against a legal fallout.

When we start a business, various types of risks come between it, that is related to finance and legal terms. As an entrepreneur, you have to play a big role in the growth and success of your business. No matter what roles you end up serving like you are the sales person, the developer, project manager, and the customer representative. This is important to remember that being a small business owner, you have to keep a check on business work on your own and can never free yourself from the liability of law.

It is essential for a business owner that he should be aware of the legal issues that may come in your way. This is not required to hire a lawyer at the initial stage, but you have a little knowledge regarding business law so that you can protect your business from legal fallouts.

Here are seven ways to protect your business from any legal fallout:

1. Always Prefer Written Agreements: When we start working with another party or business, whether they are clients, business partners, employees or service providers, signing a written contract is essential. Written agreements include all the terms and conditions clearly. In this way, we’ll be able to settle all the disputes easily, because everything will be mentioned in the contracts. If you do not sign a contract with another party, then they can easily ditch or cheat you. So, always prefer a written agreement during an initial stage.

2. Keep Your Paperwork Streamlined: Once you are done with all of the contracts or agreements, then the next level is to file and assemble your papers carefully. It is highly essential for a business to have an automated system at a place that keeps your contracts and agreements updated, whenever amendments made in the policies. Outdated paperwork is useless for business and missing information can create a misconception.

If you face any legal challenges, then hire a professional that will help you to reduce your burden by auditing a business.

3. Watch What You Say: Firstly, avoid making any public announcements and statement with your staff and client that that might be considered questionable. Always be polite with your staff and customer that is in your relation.

4. Read All Available Business Law: You may not be a lawyer by your profession, but the little knowledge about legal terms is better for you. It can help you to protect your business from legal mistakes.

Here is some necessary information that every small business should know:

• Registering Intellectual property, copyrights, and trademarks
• Financial Law
• Employment and Labor Law
• Marketing and Advertising Law

5. Remember to Register Your Intellectual Property: Intellectual property includes ideas and inventions that were created by you for your business. For example, if you have an e-commerce business that exists online then don’t forget to register your IP. Your competitors can copy your content and trademarks for which you invested huge amount. So, you need to protect your business identities like design, logo, and ideas, which is possible through intellectual property registration.

6. Get the Right Insurance: The best way to protect your business from legal fallout is to get the right insurance. As a business owner, this means looking for public liability, crime insurance, and worker’s compensation. Liability insurance can help pay for financial damages resulting from a lawsuit. Legal damages can be quite high, so this kind of insurance can protect your business finances and assets in case of an accident.

7. Seek Professional Legal Advice, When You Need it: If you are unable to understand the specific terms and conditions in any contract, seeking the help of lawyers immediately before signing the documents is an ideal way. A lawyer can help you to understand thoroughly all the terms and conditions of the contract. But, hire a lawyer is a costly process, so you have to opt for legal support services. They have a team of professionals that help in contract review and management process and enable you to make the right decision at an affordable cost.

These are some simple ways that will help you with the legal conflicts and protect your business.