With limited alternative recourse, more than one million American citizens resorted to filing for bankruptcy in 2008. Fortunately, Brooklyn bankruptcy lawyers are available to help Brooklyn residents reconcile the disparity between their debt and the ability to satisfy that debt. Brooklyn bankruptcy lawyers expect to see more personal bankruptcy filers this year than there were last year. The turn of recent economic trends have many Brooklyn bankruptcy lawyers wondering if bankruptcy rates will soon rival the number of filers that emerged in 2005.

Just prior to the implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Consumer Protection Act on October 17th. Bankruptcy lawyers in [uc]NY[/uc] saw more than two million people rush to process their bankruptcy petitions before new legislation threatened to render them ineligible and therefore, incapable of filing for a chapter 7 bankruptcy, the more popular of the two consumer bankruptcy options.

According to new guidelines established by policy makers, potential filers are subject to the means test. This test was created to filter out those who are abusing the privilege of federal bankruptcy protection from those who really need federal bankruptcy assistance. But it just so happens that the means test is not as effective as policy makers originally intended for it to be. This is primarily because the standard that requires one to oblige to the means test is if the monthly income is higher than the median income for whatever state they live in. But approximately 85% of filers do not even have to submit to the means test because their monthly income is not higher than the median income for the state that they live in. A decent majority of the remaining 15% seem to find a way to skate through the other qualifying parts of the means test. In order to qualify for a chapter 7 bankruptcy filing under ordinary circumstances, it is likely that not as many people would be able to qualify for chapter 7 bankruptcy.

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