Skip to content

Walker v. UpRight Law (In re Walker), C/A No. 18-04406-hb, Adv. Pro. No. 18-80075-hb, slip op. (Bankr. D.S.C. Jun 21, 2019)
It is important that you are counseled by a local bankruptcy attorney prior to deciding to file bankruptcy. SC Court denies, Chicago based, Upright Law’s Motion to Dismiss, finding that

There was no evidence that the people seeing to get bankruptcy advice (the Plaintiffs) “spoke with an appropriately licensed or knowledgeable attorney prior to executing this Chapter 13 Retainer Agreement. There is also no indication how Plaintiffs obtained sufficient information to decide it was appropriate to sign a fee agreement to file bankruptcy, to decide to file under Chapter 13, to understand what the Chapter 13 plan distribution process mentioned in the Chapter 13 Retainer Agreement entails, or more importantly, to determine whether that process would provide sufficiently prompt relief to adequately address Plaintiffs’ problems.

Although the Chapter 13 Retainer Agreement had SC Partner I’s [the first local attorney] name affixed to it, Plaintiffs’ case was not called to his attention until after its execution. After SC Partner I did not respond to Upright’s communications requesting he contact Plaintiffs, the case was reassigned to SC Partner II [the second local attorney] on June 25, 2018. Plaintiffs’ initial contact with SC Partner II occurred on July 2, 2018 – two weeks after Plaintiffs contacted Upright, executed the Chapter 13 Retainer Agreement, and began paying fees.

The clients “contracted with and paid Upright for legal services for a Chapter 13 case before they consulted with appropriate counsel.”
Walker v. UpRight Law (In re Walker), C/A No. 18-04406-hb, Adv. Pro. No. 18-80075-hb, slip op. (Bankr. D.S.C. Jun 21, 2019)

Tags: