Legal Question in Bankruptcy in Wisconsin

There are many different reasons why such a hearing could be scheduled, usually involving suspicion of some sort of misconduct by the debtor. Obviously, the hearing was scheduled at the UST�s ) United States Trustee) request from what little you tell me here. At such a hearing, the judge will look further into their claim and sometimes hold a trial to see if the allegations are true. Creditors rarely attend but are free to do so if they wish. You do not give me enough information to speculate why this occurred in your case, but some common reasons might include a motion to deny discharge due to dishonesty or incompleteness in your paperwork or testimony of the debtor, abuse of the system due to too much income, failure to cooperate with the trustee, perjury, and at least a dozen bankruptcy related crimes. You definitely need an attorney immediately, since anything you say in such a hearing could be used against you later in a criminal fraud investigation if there is evidence of a crime. The US Trustee is a branch of the US Department of Justice and they refer bankruptcy crimes to a sister Justice Department agency, the FBI, for further investigation if warranted. Actually, in this scenario you sometimes need two attorneys; both a criminal attorney and a bankruptcy attorney. Since you apparently got yourself into this trouble, my guess is that you are trying to do your bankruptcy on your own and without an attorney. Criminal problems are a common consequence of a lack of expertise and experience when filing a bankruptcy. The rules are unusually complex and easy to break, with very serious consequences including prison. My comments here are not legal advice, nor do they create an attorney client relationship between us. However, you are welcome to contact my office to discuss retaining me or to set up a free initial consultation at my office in Racine. I also can sometimes arrange to travel outside of Racine for initial consultations if absolutely necessary.