Waukegan Bankruptcy Lawyer On The Magic Of The Automatic Stay

One of the most important aspects of getting a bankruptcy case filed is something called the “automatic stay.”  Now if I had a soundtrack here, when I mention the word “automatic stay” you’d be hearing the hallelujah choir in the background.  This automatic stay is a God send to our clients.  What this does is it’s this one little piece of paper that stops garnishments for clients.  It stops law suits for them as well as other collection efforts.  Thus, it really, truly helps the clients.  Now with regards to garnishments, they can stop the same day the case is filed.  If by chance a client is still being garnished after the case is filed, then the law firm attorneys will become involved.  They’ll reach out to the payroll department, reach out to the attorneys, and try to get any money that was taken out illegally and have it returned back to our clients.  In some cases where the taking out of the money and the garnishment is particularly egregious, the attorney might think about perhaps filing for sanctions against the other attorneys who are bringing on the garnishments.  But this is only in very extreme cases. 

In most cases, once creditors receive the automatic stay, they know that they cannot garnish a client anymore; and if they do, they will return the monies.  One thing that’s important to stress about the garnishment is that it stops on the day of filing.  But what that also means is if a client’s been garnished before the case is filed, unfortunately, they do not get any of that money back.  It only stops money being taken out as of the day of filing onwards.  However, whenever we can get a garnishment to stop, the client is extremely grateful.

See Also, Waukegan Bankruptcy Lawyer or call directly at (847) 520-8100.