Des Plaines, Illinois · Since 2011
Des Plaines bankruptcy lawyer
The office is here, on South River Road, and it has been since 2011. If you live in Des Plaines you are not calling a phone number in a downtown tower — you are calling the attorney who will handle your case, in your own town.
I'm Arthur Corbin. You work directly with me, from the first conversation to the end of the case. No associate, no intake department.
Why Des Plaines residents call ↓- An office in Des Plaines, not a referral service
- Phone, Zoom or in person
- You speak to the attorney
Where to find me
A Des Plaines office, and three ways to use it.
Arthur Corbin Law636 South River Road, Suite 201
Des Plaines, IL 60016
(773) 570-0054
Every one of them is a scheduled consultation with a consultation agreement signed first, and only that scheduled consultation is confidential. A voicemail, a text or a message left with someone else is not — so leave your name and number, and nothing about your debts.
Two different courts, and people mix them up
Where a Des Plaines case goes, and where a lawsuit against you sits.
Almost everyone who calls has these two confused, and the confusion is reasonable: one of them sends you a summons and the other one is the answer to it.
Your bankruptcy case — federal, in Chicago
Des Plaines is in Cook County, so a case is filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. Filing is electronic and your attorney does it; nobody drives downtown to lodge a petition.
What a case does involve is a meeting of creditors with the trustee, usually about a month after filing. How that meeting is held has changed more than once in recent years, so it is a question to ask when your case is prepared rather than one to answer from a website.
A collection lawsuit — county, and much closer to home
A credit card company or a debt collector suing a Des Plaines resident files in the Circuit Court of Cook County, and for Des Plaines that is the Second Municipal District, which sits at the courthouse in Skokie. That case has deadlines, and the one that costs people most is the first: no answer filed means the creditor wins by default and has a judgment.
A bankruptcy filing reaches that case. The automatic stay applies the moment a case is filed and stops the lawsuit, the judgment collection and the deduction from a paycheck. How that sequence runs.
If you have been served with a summons, the date on it matters more than anything else on this page.
After years of these conversations
What actually brings Des Plaines residents to my office.
Four patterns, in roughly the order I see them. None of them is a story about bad character, and three of them are not even about spending.
The most common by a distance
The cards stopped being survivable
Nothing dramatic happened. Rates rose, the minimum payments rose with them, and a balance that was once manageable now takes a decade of payments to clear.
See what your own minimums cost →Then
The calls, letters, texts and emails
Contact starts once an account goes unpaid, and it does not taper off — the balance is sold on and a new collector starts again from the beginning. Most people endure it far longer than they needed to.
Then, for some
A lawsuit, or money already being taken
A collection suit, sometimes several at once in different stages, or a paycheck already reduced. One federal case deals with all of them together rather than one creditor at a time.
Underneath most of the above
One of three life events
A divorce, a serious medical event, or the loss of a job or a business. Each one cuts income while the payments stay the same, and none of the three is anybody's fault.
The two routes, and the test between them
Which chapter is open to you is a question about income.
Not about how large the balances are, and not about how long you have been struggling. These three pages are the detail; the consultation is where your own figures go into them.
Chapter 7
Three to four months, no repayment plan, no monthly payment to the card companies. Open to households whose income fits the means test.
How Chapter 7 works →
Chapter 13
One plan payment for 36 or 60 months, sized to what your budget carries. The route that can deal with a mortgage arrears or a car you are keeping.
How the plan works →
The means test
Compares your household income with the Illinois median for a household your size. It is the gate on Chapter 7, and it is arithmetic rather than judgement.
Check the income limits →
A business, or a card you guaranteed
A card opened for a business is usually guaranteed personally, which makes it your debt as well as the company's. Small business bankruptcy.
Before you borrow against the house
A home equity loan turns card debt into debt backed by your home, and retirement savings often have protection that disappears the moment you withdraw them. Ask before either. Why both are a last resort.
Before the consultation
Four things you can get on your own, free, today.
None of this is required before you call, and you should not wait on it if you have been served with a lawsuit. It saves time later and it costs nothing now.
- Your credit reportsFree from the federal site the law requires. It is the quickest way to find accounts you have lost track of.annualcreditreport.com →
- Your tax transcriptsFree from the IRS. A case needs the recent years, and a transcript beats hunting for the paper copy.Get a tax transcript from the IRS →
- A replacement Social Security card, if yours is missingIdentification is checked at the meeting of creditors, so a missing card is worth sorting out early.Replace a card at the SSA →
- A rough value for the house and the carsA listing site's estimate for the house and a used-car valuation are a starting point, not an appraisal. What matters in a case is the figure we can support, and that is a conversation.
Both required credit-counselling courses must be taken from a provider approved for the Northern District of Illinois. Which provider, and when in the sequence each course is taken, is part of preparing the case — ask rather than paying for one at random.
Questions
About filing from Des Plaines
No. Bankruptcy is federal, and a Des Plaines case is filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, which sits in Chicago. A collection lawsuit is a different court entirely — Cook County’s Second Municipal District in Skokie covers Des Plaines — and a bankruptcy filing reaches that case too.
Filing itself is electronic and your attorney does it. What a case does require is a meeting of creditors with the trustee, usually about a month after filing. How that meeting is held has changed more than once in recent years, so ask when your case is prepared rather than relying on what a website says.
Yes. Consultations are scheduled by phone, by Zoom or at the Des Plaines office, whichever suits you, with a consultation agreement signed first. Only the scheduled consultation is confidential; a voicemail or a message is not, so leave your name and number and nothing else.
Yes. The office is in Des Plaines and the surrounding suburbs are a short drive, and most of them are in Cook County, so the practical answers on this page apply there as well. The areas we serve page lists the towns clients come from.
Your most recent credit card and loan statements, recent pay stubs, last year’s tax return, and anything you have been served with by a court. If you do not have all of it, come anyway; the list below is what you can gather on your own to save time later.
That depends on the chapter and on how complicated the case is, and it is quoted in the consultation before you commit to anything. A figure printed on a website would be a guess about your household, and this page will not print one.
Find out where you stand, from an office in your own town.
Call to arrange a consultation by phone, by Zoom or here on South River Road. Please leave only your name and number in a message.
Coming from another suburb? The areas we serve →