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If you’ve made a decision to declare personal bankruptcy, you may be tempted to do so without the assistance of a lawyer.

Since you’re thinking about declaring personal bankruptcy, by definition you don’t have a big budget to hire expensive lawyers. Does that mean that you should forget about the lawyer and do everything by yourself?

I certainly would not recommend it. Why shouldn’t you try to go it alone in order to save as much money as possible? You are, after all, declaring bankruptcy because your finances are in a mess, right? Well, the truth is that this procedure has become more difficult to accomplish in recent years due to the bankruptcy reform law that was adopted in 2005. The law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush added some restrictions which seek to eliminate abuse of the bankruptcy system.

The means test is probably the most significant change in the bankruptcy law. Its entire goal is to try and make sure that you really need bankruptcy based on your current salary and debt load.

You’ll have to undergo this test if your salary is relatively high when compared to the salary of other residents in your states. If your salary is relatively low, however, you don’t really have to worry about this test at all. For those who have to take the means test, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll become ineligible, but it does mean that you’ll have to go through additional steps.

You will have to prove that you are unable to pay by showing all your financial documents that describe your income and expenses. There are many technical details involved, and this is why you definitely need a lawyer by your side guiding you through the process.

Some people may try to tell you that they were able to do all this by themselves, but chances are that this was before the recent changes in the bankruptcy law. Things are more difficult these days for the lay person to accomplish on his own.

Trying to navigate all the technical details of the bankruptcy code can be very difficult for a layperson. Even lawyers who specialize in bankruptcy have to work hard to keep up with all the latest developments and court rulings regarding personal bankruptcy.

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