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by Victoria Ring, 713Training.Com
When I got ready to electronically file a bankruptcy petition for my attorney the other day, I pressed the One-Touch Filing key and the software came back with the message: “You have entered a PACER login and you need to enter an ECF login.”
I called PACER and asked them what this error message meant. They said I had to contact my local bankruptcy court and provided me with the telephone number.
When I called the bankruptcy court and went through several menus, I finally reached a very knowledgeable person named Becky. Becky told me that my attorney needed to complete an application, send it to her and she would schedule him for Electronic Court Filing (ECF) training. (Now I learned what ECF stood for.) “The next class,” she said, “would be held in 2 months.”
However, the petition I had completed needed to be filed right away. The debtor’s paycheck was getting garnished and we had to stop the garnishment immediately. So, instead of arguing with Becky, I said: “Becky. The debtor has a garnishment and we need to file the petition immediately. What is your suggestion around this?” Becky said I could manually file the bankruptcy petition by coming to the court and filing it at the clerk’s office.
I immediately printed out the bankruptcy petition, ran to Staples and made two copies (as required by our court), paid to park downtown, went into the bankruptcy court where I was searched and scanned, then my purse was x-rayed before I could gain access to the clerk’s office. Once inside I waited in line for 30 minutes and finally got up to the clerk’s window. The clerk looked at my petition and said: “You must have the debtor’s signature in blue ink.” When I started to make a remark the clerk quickly said, “I don’t want to hear an excuse. I am only doing my job. Go back and do your job right.”
I giggled at the response, although I know this remark from the clerk would make some people very angry. But it is not to your benefit to get angry with court employees. Their minds have been programmed not to care about you or your feelings. So always remember that if you do anything a court employee doesn’t like, you will not get accomplished what you need to accomplish. Therefore, the best thing to do is to giggle, follow directions and go on with life.
So I left the court and drove back to my home office. I printed off new signature pages of the bankruptcy petition and drove out to the debtor’s home to get their signature (in blue ink) on a new set of bankruptcy forms. Then, I drove to the attorney’s office and got his signature in blue ink. By this time the bankruptcy court was closed, so I had to wait until the next morning to file the petition.
To make a long story short, I successfully got the bankruptcy petition filed. I also obtained a case number and provided the debtor with a letter to take to his employer in order to stop the wage garnishment. For the final step, I dropped off a file-stamped copy to the attorney.
The moral of the story …
If you are working as a virtual bankruptcy assistant, make sure that your attorney has an ECF Login (not a PACER login) before you try to electronically file the bankruptcy petition. If you work for attorneys that are not in your area, you may never need to worry about this. They may file their own bankruptcy petitions and only pay you to prepare the petition. But in other cases, the attorney will want you to electronically file the petition after they have reviewed it. In this case, you need an ECF Login.
ECF Logins are simply another name for a username and password. The ECF Login is issued by the court and states that the attorney can file a petition without the physical signature of the debtor and the attorney. The ECF Login is normally only issued after a court-required training class, but it may be different in your state. If the attorney you are working for has never filed a bankruptcy petition electronically under the new law, simply call the bankruptcy court (or visit their website) and get the details for obtaining an ECF Login in your area.
I wish you the best of success and I hope these articles continue to help you improve your skills. If so, let me know and I will continue to write them as I experience my own life as a virtual bankruptcy assistant.
Victoria Ring
713Training.Com
http://www.713training.com
