Please join us on Monday, May 14, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. for a memorial ceremony to celebrate the life and career of Bankruptcy Judge Dale E. Ihlenfeldt, who passed away on December 28, 2011.  The ceremony will take place in the Milwaukee courthouse, 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, in the ceremonial courtroom (Room 390) on the third floor. Immediately following the ceremony, there will be a reception sponsored by the Bankruptcy, Insolvency and Creditors' Rights section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association. To read Judge McGarity's tribute to this compassionate and wise Judge who was a teacher, mentor and friend to so many in this District, please click HERE.  

Effective January 1, 2012, the presumptively reasonable fee that a bankruptcy petition preparer in the Eastern District of Wisconsin is allowed to charge or collect will be capped at $75 per case.  The $75 fee includes all services provided by a non-attorney for assisting a debtor in preparing the petition, schedules, statements, applications and other required documents for a bankruptcy case.  

If a bankruptcy petition preparer believes that the value of his or her services in a particular case exceeds $75, that bankruptcy petition preparer will be required to file, along with the Disclosure of Compensation of Bankruptcy Petition Preparer (Form B280), an affidavit or declaration under penalty of perjury, explaining why the preparer believes that the services in that case were worth more than $75.  The court will review that affidavit or declaration, and determine whether to allow a fee in excess of $75.  

Any bankruptcy petition preparer who, without obtaining court approval, charges or collects a fee in excess of $75 will be required to refund the excess to the debtor.  If the petition preparer does not refund the excess fee to the debtor, the petition preparer will face additional sanctions.  

For more information and additional regulations concerning bankruptcy petition preparers, see Title 11 U.S.C. § 110.

Pursuant to Local Rule 5005, “Electronic filing is mandatory for all attorneys who file in this district except in limited emergency circumstances or where the attorney has received a waiver from the mandatory requirement from the Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Court.  If an attorney encounters emergency circumstances that require the attorney to file documents in paper form, the paper filing shall be accompanied by a letter briefly discussing the emergency circumstances that prevented electronic filing.”  For additional information on how to become a registered electronic filer, please refer to the “Training” link under the above entitled section “Information for Attorneys.”

The Judicial Conference of the United States has authorized an increase, effective April 1, 2012, in the Judiciary's electronic public access fee in response to increasing costs for maintaining and enhancing the electronic public access system. The increase in the electronic public access (EPA) fee, from $.08 to $.10 per page, is needed to continue to support and improve the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, and to develop and implement the next generation of the Judiciary's Case Management/Electronic Case Filing system.

The Conference was mindful of the impact such an increase could have on other public entities and on public users accessing the system to obtain information on a particular case. For this reason, local, state, and federal government agencies will be exempted from the increase for three years. Moreover, PACER users who do not accrue charges of more than $15 in a quarterly billing cycle would not be charged a fee. (The current exemption is $10 per quarter.) The expanded exemption means that 75 to 80 percent of all users will still pay no fees.

http://www.pacer.gov/

Milwaukee-Thursdays, 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., U.S. Courthouse, Room 153.

Green Bay - First Thursday of each month (except November), 5:00-6:30 p.m., Harmony Café, 1660 W. Mason Street, in the Justice Room.

Please note: the Green Bay Help Desk will be closed on March 1, 2012

We need volunteer attorneys for the Pro Se Help Desk and attorneys who may be willing to accept referrals of Chapter 13 debtors. If you are an attorney, and you wish to volunteer or add your name to the referral list, please contact the Clerk's Office at (414) 297-3291.

The bankruptcy section of the Milwaukee Bar Association, with the assistance and support of the State Bar of Wisconsin, provides a Pro Se Bankruptcy Help Desk at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Milwaukee and at the Harmony Café in Green Bay.  The Pro Se Help Desk is funded by the State Bar of Wisconsin, the American College of Bankruptcy and the American  College of Bankruptcy Foundation.  The service is provided on a first come, first served basis.  Due to increased volume, it is possible that if you do not come early you may not be seen. There will be a sign-in form and each person will be called in turn.

The service is available to chapter 7 debtors (or people considering filing chapter 7 bankruptcy) who wish to proceed pro se (i.e., do not have a lawyer to represent them in a bankruptcy case).

The service provides assistance with completing the required bankruptcy paperwork.

To enhance the registration process for new electronic filers, the Bankruptcy Clerk's Office has added an online submission process.  To register for an electronic filing account on this Court’s Electronic Case Filing System (CM-ECF), please click here.