Published Thursday, December 1, 2011 @ 6:31 pm

We’ve talked a lot about the recent record-breaking Black Friday, but it was our nation’s President who instead promoted shopping on the second annual “Small Business Saturday,” a day (November 26) devoted to spurring growth and hiring in some of our country’s most hard-hit business sectors.

According to Reuters, “Promoting “Small Business Saturday”, the second annual event to help Main Street merchants in a tough U.S.…

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Published Tuesday, November 29, 2011 @ 8:12 am

Threats of a double-dip recession — a recession, followed by a short-lived recovery, followed by another recession — permeated the headlines in 2011, at a time when there were plenty of signs that this second coming of an economic downturn had begun. Stagnate hiring, a paltry job market and plummeting real estate prices, as well as low consumer confidence, all made another financial reckoning feel less like a fiction and more like a reality.…

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Published Saturday, May 28, 2011 @ 9:21 am

@font-face { font-family: “Times”; }@font-face { font-family: “ＭＳ 明朝”; }@font-face { font-family: “Cambria Math”; }@font-face { font-family: “Georgia”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in It’s that time of year again: baseball season. The smell of freshly-cut grass, the crack of the bat, the seventh inning stretches to the sound of the organ and the smell of a hot dog.…

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Published Saturday, May 21, 2011 @ 7:48 am

It’s that time of year again: baseball season. The smell of freshly-cut grass, the crack of the bat, the seventh inning stretches to the sound of the organ and the smell of a hot dog.

It’s also time for another great bankruptcy metaphor.

A personal bankruptcy can be just like a baseball game.…

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Published Tuesday, March 22, 2011 @ 7:28 am

In this additional online accompaniment to the Law Offices of John T. Orcutt website, we strive to cover much of the latest bankruptcy news as well as offer an insider’s guide of the ins and outs of the bankruptcy process. This includes a wealth of pre-bankruptcy considerations, a look at the intricacies of a bankruptcy filing, and sure-fire post-bankruptcy steps to get you back on the road to more financially-rewarding future.…

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Published Wednesday, March 16, 2011 @ 11:24 am

Chicago’s own Giordano’s, one of the most popular purveyors of stuffed pizza, is filing for bankruptcy protection.

It’s not unusual to hear of any business filing for bankruptcy in these tough economic times. During the Recession, less consumer demand and fewer customer orders often caused a rise in inventory, losses in sales margins, and high debts with no solution other than going out of business or restructuring via a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.…

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Published Wednesday, October 21, 2009 @ 6:45 am

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 has made some people wary of even considering bankruptcy. This was undoubtedly the intention of the credit industry, who went to great lengths to make sure the “reform” passed. The passage of the law and subsequent misinformation from the credit industry lobby has led to a general perception that bankruptcy is now a difficult, if not impossible, undertaking.…

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Published Thursday, August 6, 2009 @ 6:56 am

In a recent post, we talked a little about the “Meeting of Creditors.” That got us to thinking, are there other terms and steps along the way that we could help you better understand if you are still considering filing bankruptcy? And, does the blog mention or gloss over some terms that leave you with questions?…

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Published Tuesday, July 28, 2009 @ 6:21 am

Before the deservedly unpopular 2005 reforms to the Bankruptcy Code, it was rare that an innocent mistake could cause your discharge to be denied or revoked. It used to be that trustees and the courts reserved this harsh measure for those situations where it was clear that a person filing for bankruptcy had engaged in serious, persistent and intentional misbehavior.…

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Published Wednesday, July 22, 2009 @ 8:08 am

Liens―a kind of property interest that secures payment on a loan, or the performance of some obligation―are a thorny little issue in bankruptcy cases. Unlike many kind of debts, liens generally (with only a few exceptions) will not be discharged automatically in a bankruptcy the way unsecured debt is. Liens come in many flavors―how about tax liens, mortgage liens, and mechanic’s liens, to name a few― but they generally fall into one of two categories: consensual liens and nonconsensual liens.…

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Published Tuesday, July 14, 2009 @ 8:21 am

We all make mistakes, but some are more costly than others. So how costly is it if you forget to list a debt in your bankruptcy paperwork? There’s no need to panic; forgetting to list a debt isn’t the end of the world. However, depending on what kind of bankruptcy you file, it can cause some problems in your bankruptcy.…

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Published Thursday, July 9, 2009 @ 11:23 am

But you must resist!

You’ve caught on to the fact that certain kinds of debts are “better than others.” Knowledge is a good thing, but don’t get confident that you’ll be able to pull a fast one by trading off a non-dischargeable debt for a dischargeable one. The consequences simply aren’t worth it.…

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