Family law attorney and legal assistant in our office were told by his client either during or immediately after attorney obtained a change in custody for the client that client couldn’t pay his bill and was going to file bankruptcy. Six months later client filed and listed our attorney and the gal as unsecured creditors. There is case law that says GAL fees are recoverable in a bankruptcy case and to that end, attorneys fees might be as well. In particular, if the attorney fees are over a year old, and the Debtor didn’t incur them knowing he/she couldn’t pay, I might file it. I did file one where the Debtor did get custody of 2 kids, and was struggling to stay afloat. After the Debtor told me his attorney hired his ex-wife to work off her bill, and then obtained judgment and executed garnishment against my client (the debtor), I couldn’t get that one on file fast enough. It was a 13 because of a prior-filing date problem, but nevertheless, that attorney will only get about 40% of his fees, and over 60 months! That’s fees owed to the other spouse/parent’s attorney. Fees owed to
debtor’s own counsel are discharged absent fraud. (Not enough facts
here to say whether there was fraud).
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