Bankruptcy Indiana

Twenty five years in practice as a debt consolidation lawyer offering Indiana bankruptcy help, I learned, may have been dangerous to my health – my emotional health, that is. It seems that just this fall, an informal survey of National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorney members revealed that, like most mental health professionals, most lawyers for bankruptcy – in Indiana and elsewhere - suffer from compassion fatigue.

Compassion fatigue is a form of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion that especially affects those in the helping professions – doctors, caregivers, and…bankruptcy attorneys!  “Compassion-fatigued physicians, observes John-Henry Pfiffering, PhD, continue to give fully to their patients, finding it difficult to main a healthy balance of empathy and objectivity.”

Actually, I doubt if any of the good bankruptcy attorneys who work in the four Zuckerberg bankruptcy law offices spend much time thinking about the “hazards” of compassion.  We’re focused on the type of fatigue we see in the people who turn to us for help.  It’s interesting that another survey, this one by the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, revealed that people in financial trouble have a terrible sense of isolation, and their worry and tension over money troubles negatively affects their health.

Four years ago, when I decided to write these Bankruptcy in Indiana articles, I hoped to accomplish several things

• To prove that while life can be brutal, filing personal bankruptcy in Indiana need not be brutal at all.
  
• I wanted to reach people who need to do something about their debt situation, but who’d been paralyzed by fear and misinformation.
  
• I wanted to get across my ideas about the way clients who need Indiana debt help ought to be treated (compassion plays a big role here!)
  
• With hundreds of thousands of small businesses in Indiana, I wanted to help business owners stop blaming themselves and help them change direction through small business bankruptcy in Indiana.
  
• To alert readers to scams so that they could protect themselves. 
  
• To direct readers to the right government agencies and to sources of useful advice and help.
  
• To help stop foreclosure by raising awareness about mortgage modification programs.
  
  
  I must confess that, when one of the Columbus bankruptcy lawyers who is my colleague first showed me the article about compassion fatigue, I realized that it too often happens these days, that clients don’t have enough compassion for US!  It seems some clients have a sense of entitlement, even going so far as to treat my staff members poorly.

But, you know what? If compassion fatigue is part of this job, well, that’s just how it is.  After all, I declared 25 years ago that I and everyone who works in my office will first and foremost be good listeners and that we will "be there” for people, really hearing their concerns. I haven’t changed my mind about that.

No matter how many years pass, no matter how much student loan debt help we give, no matter how much payday loan debt help we offer, no matter how many tens of thousands of bankruptcy Chapter 7 cases or Chapter 13 bankruptcies we file, compassion and courtesy will be what you can expect to find with Mark Zuckerberg!