There were 505 bankruptcy filings in February, a historic high for that month in New Hampshire. It's the highest number since the bankruptcy laws were changed in 2005, and comes after a record January, when 381 bankruptcies were filed here. Bankruptcy...

Red and green numbers kept flickering on a presentation screen as five brothers pointed out credit-card debt, consumer debt, mortgage debt and a ballooning national debt as their father tried to explain why it's patriotic to file for bankruptcy. These...

As the mortgage melt down paralyzed the economy across the US and throughout New York State, one company in the center of the storm had all the business it could handle. The little-known law firm of Steven J. Baum PC, which is based in suburban Buffalo,...

The end of the year tends to be a slow time for bankruptcies, but as Christmas approached last month, Saratoga Springs attorney Ron Kim filed 10 new cases....

Personal bankruptcies rose more than 30 percent last year, with more than 1.4 million protection filings. Many middle-class Americans sought relief after losing jobs, seeing their businesses fail or facing foreclosure. In 2005, Congress overhauled the...

Sharply higher numbers of people and businesses in Louisiana sought refuge from debt in federal bankruptcy court, crippled by the housing collapse, credit cards and sharply lower retail sales. According to the Administrative Office of United States...

Melissa Ritts had a $60,000-a-year job as a computer programmer, a credit score in the mid-700s, a savings account and money set aside for her retirement. But in 2002, the Euclid resident, now 36, lost her job during the MCI WorldCom scandal while living...

Of the 16 bankruptcy cases heard one recent morning at the federal courthouse downtown, most sounded the same. Debtors described unemployment, underemployment, high mortgage payments, stifling credit card debt — factors that drove nearly 1,200 people...

While he was at a free legal clinic last week, Memphis bankruptcy attorney Bruce Ralston struck up a conversation with a woman whose background would have made her a hot commodity once upon a time. That is, until the recession displaced professionals...

Personal bankruptcies soared last year in Western states hit hardest by the real-estate bust. In states such as California, Arizona and Nevada, where housing prices soared and then collapsed during the past decade, consumer bankruptcy filings rose...

Last fall, I lamented that too few people navigating the stresses of bankruptcy were aware of emotional and mental-health resources in the community. Now, that's changing. This week, the Orlando Division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court's Middle District of...

When Gregg Felice's parents deeded their home to their two children five years ago, he borrowed the money to buy out his sister's share of the house. It seemed like a good idea at the time, he said, but what was a good idea in 2004 turned sour with the...

One in 50 Georgia households declared bankruptcy in 2009 between January and November, leaving the state with the third-highest personal bankruptcy rate in the nation. Georgia’s crowded federal bankruptcy courts handled 66,925 filings during the first...

South Central Texas may have withstood the worst of the recession, but it hasn't escaped one national trend: a rising tide of bankruptcies. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, 5,113 bankruptcies were filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of...

Besieged by a 13.9 percent unemployment rate and myriad foreclosures, Lee County residents are declaring bankruptcy in record numbers. About 6,720 individuals and businesses filed for protection from creditors in Fort Myers in the fiscal year that ended...

No one wants to be sitting across from Mary Hoben on a Thursday morning, but they are awfully glad she's there. Hoben is one of 16 attorneys who donate their time and expertise to low-income Minnesotans at a free bankruptcy advice clinic. The new clinic,...

The financial crisis of 2008 and the current recession were triggered by the bursting of the housing bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis that began in late 2006/early 2007 (Reinhart 2008). But US personal bankruptcy law also played an important role....

It's official. The number of Tampa Bay residents declaring bankruptcy is at an all-time high. In the fiscal year that ended in September, 28,504 individuals and businesses sought protection from creditors in the Tampa-Fort Myers division of federal...

Some of the debtors sitting forlornly in this city’s old stone bankruptcy court have lost a job or gotten divorced. Others have been summoned to face their creditors because they spent mindlessly beyond their means. But all too often these days, they...

Staci Schubert's career has taken her from New York to California, from graphic designer to website designer to sales executive. Most recently, she launched a business as a designer of handbags and accessories. At 40 and with such accomplishments,...

More than 6,000 Connecticut residents have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy through the first three quarters of this year, a 51 percent jump over the same period a year ago, according to data released Monday. In the first nine months of the year, 6,289...

Bankruptcy filings in New London County more than doubled in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period last year, according to statistics released Monday by a real estate tracking firm....

While leaders in Washington debate health-care reform, bills for medical care right now are driving more people in the mid-Hudson into bankruptcy."It's overwhelming, tragic and overwhelming," said Peter Frank, a lawyer with Legal Services of the Hudson...

The number of Bay State residents filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection shot up 35 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared to the same period in 2008. Filings for Chapter 7, which provides people the opportunity to wipe out most of...

While Wall Street has been obsessing over the market's return to 10,000, Main Street has been focused on a darker threshold: 1 million. U.S. bankruptcy filings this year passed that mark in September, putting the nation on track to see the highest...