Going legally broke has made a big comeback -- especially in the Los Angeles area -- despite a mid-decade revision to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code intended to curb filings. The number of Southern Californians seeking bankruptcy protection nearly doubled in...

Self-employed with no health insurance, Dorothy Carmona began descending into debt in 2004 when she had a stroke. Next, the housing crash ruined her title business. Then last fall she was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer. It all came to a head this...

he great Supreme Court free-speech cases of the 20th century arose from the suppression of political dissent in wartime and the struggle for civil rights in the South. These days, the court’s First Amendment docket is thinner and odder. A recent...

For 12 months after her husband's death in 2007, Carmen tried to keep her family financially afloat. But losing her husband's salary gutted the family income and the mother of three boys found herself unable to pay the mortgage and the car note, let...

Bankruptcy filings across Alabama surged in the first three months of 2009, underscoring the severity of an economic downturn that has seen surging layoffs, business closings and foreclosures. Between January and March, 8,415 personal bankruptcies were...

Homeowners stood up and cheered as President Barack Obama stepped into the legislative ring on their behalf recently, wrestling with banking and credit union lobbies to pass a so-called...

Consumer and commercial bankruptcy filings are on pace to reach a stunning 1.5 million this year, according to a report from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records. While well below the record 2 million filings in 2005, the number of filings is up...

U.S. consumer bankruptcy filings soared 37 percent in May compared with the same period last year, according to figures released Tuesday by the American Bankruptcy Institute. The figures, using data compiled by the National Bankruptcy Research Center,...

Statewide bankruptcy filings continued to mount in May as the highest unemployment rate in three decades and triple-digit foreclosure increases kept Hawaii residents scrambling for financial relief. The number of filings this month increased 60.4 percent...

As the economy tanks and bankruptcy filings soar, bankruptcy lawyers challenging a 2005 law's restrictions on how they can assist debtors contend that there is an urgent need for guidance from the nation's highest court. For the past four years, consumer...

With the state's unemployment rate at 7.8 percent and about 500,000 workers without a job, it's no surprise bankruptcies in Western Pennsylvania have jumped by 9 percent so far this year and in 2008, experts say. "People tend to hang on as long as they...

Lynchburg-area bankruptcy filings rose 30 percent for the first quarter of the year compared to a year ago, according to an analysis of records from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia. Those numbers could go much higher as...

Personal and business bankruptcy filings in Nevada surged in the fourth quarter, with the national recession compounding problems associated with declining home prices. Numbers compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts show Nevada...

The adage ‘ask a busy person and you’ll get it done’ holds a special meaning for Hurst bankruptcy attorney Carey Ebert. As a partner at Ebert Law Offices LP in Hurst, a judge for teen court in Colleyville as well as a member of the Colleyville...

These days, it is one of the busiest offices in downtown's swank Emerald Plaza office tower. And one of the saddest. Day after day, and hour after hour, a relentless stream of debtors files through Room 630 to attend a first meeting with their creditors.

Job pressures helped push Valley bankruptcies to a 41- month high in March, with the big increase made possible by income-tax refunds. "People now can afford to pay their bankruptcy attorneys because they got their tax refunds back," said Chris...

The ailing economy continues to pull more Americans into bankruptcy court, where the number of troubled consumers filing for protection soared in March to its highest level since October 2005, when a new law made it more arduous and expensive to file....

Bankruptcy filings continued to climb on Long Island - growing nearly 55 percent in February over a year ago. A total of 715 residents and businesses filed for bankruptcy in Nassau and Suffolk, according to court records. "I've seen things getting...

Jose Abrahantes has been working for about half a century -- in construction, landscaping, even as a janitor cleaning offices on the night shift. He figured he would eventually enjoy a relaxing retirement. But at 66, with medical bills piling up after...

Homeowners buried under mountains of debt are flocking to area bankruptcy attorneys, mirroring a nationwide trend that has caught the attention of President Barack Obama and members of Congress. Job losses, adjustable rate mortgages, and maxed-out credit...

The current financial crisis is all-inclusive; our path to prosperity or even simple financial stability seemingly obliterated. With every furlough, layoff or stock market drop, Americans of all ages and backgrounds are seeing their incomes dwindle,...

He works at Lowe's, making $12.60 an hour selling appliances. She's a retiree who gets $1,015 a month in Social Security. They live in Clearwater in a house mortgaged for $346,000, now worth about half that. On this St. Patrick's Day, garbed in green for...

For many months, because of federal inaction, the states acted alone to combat the rising tide of foreclosures across our nation. The plan recently announced by President Obama is a welcome effort that will help keep families in their homes. As critical...

In Judge Geraldine Mund's courtroom in Woodland Hills one morning last week, a gray-haired man dressed informally in a blue fleece vest and black T-shirt strode to the podium to state his side in a bankruptcy case....

WE are all learning, to our deep distress, how the perpetual pursuit of profits drove so many of the bad decisions that financial institutions made during the mortgage mania. But while investors tally the losses that were generated by loose lending so...