When I tell people I primarily concentrate on bankruptcy law and foreclosure law in Chicago and surrounding suburbs the response is always the same. “Wow you must be busy!” The truth is we are busy at The Lawson Law Group trying to help people save their homes, get out of debt and build wealth. While I’m glad to be able to help serve so many in my community it sometimes makes me sad. I’m sad because for all those I help there are so many not getting the help and suffering in silence. Read more

Hi, all. I know it's been awhile since I have blogged. I apologize. But by today being tax day I could not resist sharing one huge financial lesson. It's likely a lot of you filed long before today to get that all important tax refund. You couldn't wait to get the big check from the government. Well, if you have a job and you receive a tax refund, you are a making a huge financial mistake. Read more

I am getting calls more and more from people wondering if they should allow their property to go into foreclosure. This is a very personal question that a lot of homeowners are asking themselves now. There is not a one size fit all answer to this question. The reason most people are asking this question is two fold: (1) The family is struggling every month to cover the monthly mortgage payment and/or (2) The property is worth far less than what is owed on the mortgage. So the questions begin, should I or shouldn’t I? For most of us our home is not a financial investment first but an emotional investment and this is what makes the question that much tougher. Read more

A foreclosure is the legal proceeding where the bank takes the legal steps necessary to take your property for nonpayment of the mortgage. If you have found yourself behind in your mortgage you may have received a call or letter from your mortgage company threatening foreclosure. Then you may have heard of HAMP and tried to do a loan modification. Did you know under HAMP guidelines that the mortgage company has to cease foreclosure activity while your application is being reviewed? Did you know that a lot of banks ignore this guideline? They do. Read one story about Bank of America here http://read.bi/nWFTXT. Read more

The American Bankruptcy Institute announced this week that personal bankruptcy filings in July dropped 18 percent from a year ago. Since the beginning of 2011, monthly bankruptcy filing rates have been below 2010 rates. Specifically: Read more

These days I have offered more and more assistance to people who are facing foreclosure of their home. I am happy to be able to help but the sad fact is that more people need the help but aren’t reaching out to an attorney. Most people give up without a fight. Do you a vacancy on your block? It’s probably because your neighbor did not know they had rights, a right to fight the bank back and defend their foreclosure case! Read more

It happened again today. A person came into my office hoping to get rid of thousands of dollars in medical bills and credit cards. I looked at their gross income and compared it to the median income for their household size. They made more money than the average similarly situated person. I had to say to them, you can get out of debt but not as easily as you had hoped. To qualify for a Chapter 7 and eliminate all your debt without paying you have to pass a test. We bankruptcy attorneys refer to it as the “means test”. Well the person in my office just thought the test was mean. “I don’t make enough money to pay my bills and to tell me I can’t file bankruptcy is just plain MEAN!!”, she said. Read more

How do you choose a lawyer? Your lawyer is personal confidant and holder of your secrets. So first you need to trust your lawyer. But how do you know if your lawyer is worthy of your trust? It is hard to tell but you have practice discernment. Generally it may be as easy to determine by looking to what you have in common with the person you are entrusting with your personal affairs. Does the lawyer understand your issues because the client before you had the same issue? Or does your lawyer understand your issue because the client before you had a very similar issue as yours AND your lawyer personally experienced something similar in their lifetime. Are you looking for a perfect person, that has never experienced a hardship ever or would you trust someone that has lived and experienced some ups and downs and can look you in the eye and say “I understand”? Read more

So you lost your job and you missed your mortgage payment. You borrowed the money to catch on your payments but the mortgage company returned your payments. The mortgage company actually refused your payment and told you it wasn’t enough to bring your loan current. Next thing, you are served with foreclosure papers. Sound familiar? Read more

Yes, it’s Nicole and yes and I am still a bankruptcy lawyer. But I have to be honest, the more bankruptcies I file the more I think that there has to be a better way. Would you believe that I have filed multiple bankruptcies for some people? Or that I filed bankruptcies for a mom and her daughter and a father and his son? What if I told you that I filed bankruptcy for 5 people in one family? It’s all true. I have. And while I realize today that bankruptcy is a necessary weapon in our arsenal it is my hope to make it less necessary. My thought is a big reason so many of us need bankruptcy protection is that we are uninformed. We don’t know what we think we know. Did I confuse you? Problem is you think you know all you need to know about money until you find yourself in trouble. Read more