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Today I am writing about my friend and colleague, Bret Knewtson. Bret is an outstanding attorney and member of the legal community. I will never forget the speech he gave as the outgoing Chair of the Oregon State Bar Consumer Law Section. In that speech, he talked about how lawyers have a great duty to be members of the legal community and serve.

Much of Bret’s website deals with bankruptcy, but he is also known in Oregon as the leading authority on defending against credit card lawsuits. He has led the charge in aggressively defending consumers against time-barred breach of contract lawsuits which are filed outside of the statute of limitations.

From his website “Bret Knewtson is a 2003 graduate of Lewis and Clark Law School. He has specialized in personal and small business bankruptcy protection for three years. Mr. Knewtson is always available to answer his clients’ chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy questions.
As a member of the Consumer Law Section, Mr. Knewtson has helped to pass legislation increasing Oregon’s exemption amounts for debtors and other consumer protection laws.”

You can contact Bret at:

Law Office of Bret Knewtson
3000 NW Stucki PL STE 230
Hillsboro OR 97124
503.846.1160
knewtsonlaw.com

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Oregon has just released new bankruptcy statistics for January through May of 2010. Consistent with filing patterns in other parts of the country, the high numbers of individuals filing for Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy remains stable.

With the exception of May 2010, the monthly filings for Vancouver WA bankruptcy petitions has increased for each month from 2009. Clark County bankruptcy filings increased 15% for February 2010, 20% in March 2010, and 9% in April 2010. In May 2010, there was a slight drop in bankruptcy filings in Clark County, but this decrease was offset by a 20% increase in Cowlitz County bankruptcies, and increases for Pacific, Skamania and Wahkiakum Counties. Although the percentages for those counties are high, the real numbers of those lower populated counties is still a small percentage of the total filings in this district.

The gross number of filings has remained relatively stable from 2009 to 2010, however, 2008 and 2009 showed significant increases in bankruptcy filings over previous years. Accordingly, the trend remains high. The yearly filings for the Western District of Washington were as follows: 2000: 17665, 2001: 21850, 2002: 23397, 2003: 24398, 2004: 23402, 2005: 30165, 2006: 5791, 2007:7665, 2008:11439, 2009:18523. Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings also followed a similar trend, as follows: 2000: 4922, 2001: 4979, 2002: 5299, 2003: 5533, 2004: 5450, 2005: 5085, 2006: 2581, 2007: 3489, 2008: 4708, 2009: 5501. The statistics do not take into account cases that are dismissed or converted after filing.

It appears that there was a statistical blip in 2004, when the BAPCPA took effect and as filers believed that they would be precluded from filing in the future. However, as the housing bubble allowed consumers to borrow their way out of debt, filings in 2006 and 2007 fell precipitously. The financial crash and ensuing crisis caused those figures to rise exponentially through the current quarter. It leaves to be seen whether the trend will continue to rise, remain stable, or eventually correct itself.