Can AI actually make a bankruptcy practice more efficient without creating new ethical and professional risks?

Michael Goldstein (00:01.096)
Hey there. Welcome to the very first episode of Beyond the 341. I’m attorney Michael Goldy. And normally I’m gonna be the one sitting in the host chair. But for episode one and episode one only, I wanted to do things just a little differently to kick things off, maybe do something you know a little more interesting. So rather than immediately jumping into interviewing other bankruptcy attorneys, other people who have been in the practice for you know for a little bit, I thought the best way to get this started.

Was to show you what the format’s actually gonna look like. So I invited my friend Sean to come on and basically turn the tables on me and interview me, ask me kind of some of the stuff that I’m seeing and what’s going on kind of after and behind the 341. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about my background and how I got into bankruptcy, some of the cases and the strategies that I’ve seen over the years, and really just how the practice of bankruptcy law is changing and has changed since 2005 when I started, especially.

With new technology and AI just influencing everything that we do these days. So start next week, I’m gonna take over with a regular host and I’m gonna be talking with my brothers and sisters at the bar, attorneys from all over the country about the cases, about what they’re seeing, things that you know aren’t bankruptcy 101. So, with all that said, I wanna introduce Sean Dennon here and let’s get to it.

Sean Dennin (01:21.036)
Thank you so much, Mike. Super excited to be here. And you know, I’m really excited about the format of this podcast. you know, I’ve listened to a lot of different attorney podcasts over the years. I’m the executive director of Birch Citadel, a California-based habitability law firm. and I’ve listened to different podcasts, but when you came to me with this idea, I was really excited about it because it really gets into some of like the details, right? Like I think a lot of times like podcasts, they kind of keep it at the high level, right? Like, hey, so what inspired you to become a bankruptcy attorney?

attorney and all those things. And those are nice. Those are nice stories. But I’m really excited about like the format that you have here and for us to actually get into some issues and some examples and talk about the evolving trends and what’s changing and and really, you know, give give people in your audience some really good information. So super excited to be here, super excited to do this first one and excited to see where you’re gonna take beyond 341.

Michael Goldstein (02:14.47)
appreciate that. You know, one of one of things that I find is like so many people they they just jump into a podcast and I’ll I’ll say all they’re doing is they’re selling marketing services or or they’re or they’re just selling this top you know top of the funnel kind of

educational content that honestly the people who the episode’s made for they never listen to and honestly John what want to do is I want to talk to bankruptcy attorneys out there people who didn’t just pass the bar yesterday you know not not someone who’s looking a file but rather they’re let’s talk about what’s going on in the industry and how things are changing because listen there is a paradigm shift in the way that people think because of AI and just the nature of of the economy overall right now and this is the perfect time to do it.

Sean Dennin (02:33.13)
Exactly.

Sean Dennin (02:56.206)
100%, 100%. So Mike, that’s a perfect segue to just kind of jump right into this. I know that you have over 20 years experience practicing bankruptcy law. and you know, we talked about the idea of like, hey, you know, everybody understands that in-law experience matters, right? And that’s super, super important. So what would be something, and I think this is really important for our audience, you know, some newer bankruptcy attorneys that are listening, you know, what would be something that you might see in a in a bankruptcy situation.

or a case that might be missed by someone who doesn’t have 20 years experience or someone who hasn’t been practicing for this long.

Michael Goldstein (03:33.609)
That’s actually a really great and timely question. And I give you a perfect example. I actually just had the situation this week where I have a guy who came to me and he had a ton of tax debt, ton of credit card debt, and was really concerned with, hey, can I file a chapter seven? because you know I run a business, I’m actually making a lot of money with the business, but I don’t really have a lot of money at the end of the day. Now the problem is the average bankruptcy attorney is just getting started. All they do is, okay, well, what’s your income? What’s the median income in the state?

Are you married? Do you have kids? Let’s take a look at it. Well, you you’re married, you got no kids, $88,000 in Massachusetts. How much is business generating for you? $150,000, $200,000? I’m sorry, we’re gonna have to put you into a chapter 13, we’re gonna be doing payment plans, but don’t worry, that’s okay. And then the average attorney goes in and explains them why a 13 is a great thing, knowing full well that hey, this guy probably should get out of this thing in 90 days, not in five years. The thing that people seem to forget, and and I know I mean I know my brothers and sisters.

have been doing this for 20 years, I’m sure you guys know this, but there’s no median income for business bankruptcy. So if the nature of your debts are business related rather than personal, then you actually can get somebody who’s you know making 200k a year into that chapter 7. And so I asked my and I asked my client this question. I said so well tell me the nature of your of the debts, you know, are they personal, are they business? And my client’s first thought was, well, I, you know

I run a business, but I’m really just an independent contractor. I’m staying in hotels, I’m buying food. So yeah, I guess it’s all personal.

And I start talking to them say, wait a minute, you’re running a business. Where do you live? Do you live in a hotel or do you live in an apartment? You live in an apartment, so you’re staying in hotels. Why? Are you going to Disney World or are you on sales calls? Are you going to conventions? Well, I’m doing sales calls. okay. And when you go out to dinner, you eat by yourself? Well, no, I eat with clients. And who pays for it? Well, I do. really? So you mean you’re paying for business expenses? And as we start looking through and it says, wait a minute, you actually have about 80%.

Michael Goldstein (05:40.581)
percent of everything you do being business related. So you need to stop worrying about the median income now. We can get into a chapter seven. And then we can start doing the analysis of okay now it’s not an income issue. It’s do I have assets that I’m going to lose in a seven? Have I committed any kind of potential

gray area fraud that might rise to an adversary and because of that I don’t want to file a seven. But I would rather be having those conversations and doing that analysis than just taking a hardline black white. How much do you make? Yes, no. And I think that’s something that, you know, a lot of people they they just don’t, they don’t think about when they get started until they’ve done a couple of these cases.

Sean Dennin (06:18.668)
Yeah, yeah, well you know, again, because each case is unique, right? So if you do take that cookie cutter approach where we’re trying to just, you know, make a factory, if you will, right? And it’s like, okay, they set this fact pattern and and they’re gonna go into that. so Mike, on the same topic, can you give an example of a case where like you were working with somebody where a bankruptcy client didn’t even realize that bankruptcy was an option for them?

Michael Goldstein (06:41.767)
Yeah, for sure. So this goes back quite a few years, but and and I honestly I think the nature of the economy right now or real estate setting, we’re going right back into that same area. but one of the benefits of chapter 13, as you guys know, are cramdowns, our motions to avoid liens. and when you have your home, well

The home has got a mortgage on it, maybe there’s an equity line. But I’ve actually worked with a couple clients who are making really good money. They’re making 300 or 350k a year. But the thing is, they bought real estate in the wrong market. And they ended up buying two, a second and a third home, not truly an investment property, but not their primary residence. and yeah, they they did some Airbnb with it. So they were about five or six hundred thousand dollars upside down on their mortgages. And they really came to an issue and said, hey, is there anything we can

do can we can we negotiate on the debt can we try and talk to the mortgage company about this i mean the the property is not worth that much and i had to explain to them listen we actually can put you into a chapter 13 we can look at the fact that you have got a tremendous amount

Of essentially unsecured debt on your real estate. You know, we can go in, we can file that motion to bifurcate the debt from the mortgage. You know, if you’ve got a property worth $135,000 and you get a mortgage for $400,000, if that goes to foreclosure tomorrow, bank’s gonna get $135,000. Best case scenario, probably not even close to it. So you know, we go in, we file the motion to bifurcate, and now we can discharge the rest of that unsecured debt. And the thing is, these

Sean Dennin (08:12.088)
Got it.

Michael Goldstein (08:19.849)
Guys weren’t exactly coming in just to do this. I mean, they did have some debt. You know, they probably had 20, 30k in credit cards. They just were saying, Yeah, but I make $300,000. That’s you know, it’s less than 10% of my total income. I’m sure we can figure out a way to pay it back. And because of that, like

Bankruptcy became a tool to help them reorganize and and to get relief from assets that really didn’t have didn’t have the value to back up the debt. And these guys were they they they couldn’t believe like what a great idea this was. and so again, so many people they they look at this as bankruptcy is for people who are over their head, they’re behind on for they’re behind on their mortgage, so we’re looking at a foreclosure, we need the automatic stay. They had their car repossessed. We got to get that back.

Sean Dennin (08:46.732)
The value.

Michael Goldstein (09:06.641)
filing real quick. You know, they’ve got something happened and there’s a divorce, there’s a medical situation, we gotta throw them into a seven because they just can’t pay anything. But bankruptcy’s been around since I mean think about this guys. It’s in Article I of the Constitution, the founding fathers thought about bankruptcy before almost anything else. That’s why we don’t have debtors’ prisons in the United States like they did in England. We want people to be able to use this as a tool and not to get political but

President of the United States has filed a couple times. And not just this president, but Abraham Lincoln filed bankruptcy. Walt Disney filed bankruptcy. I mean, there’s a host of folks who’ve done this because it was a tool that allowed them to reinvent themselves. And that’s what I love about the practice of law, is that it’s it’s not just, hey, I’m in trouble, what can I do to get out of it? It’s there are there are tools there if you use them strategically.

Sean Dennin (10:03.95)
Very interesting, Mike. Very so so you mentioned about like obviously the triggers that cause people to to call and everything. But I think that is kind of interesting about people just learning more and educating themselves about

ways that, you know, this can be used more as a strategy, more a as something like you said, to reinvent yourself to this because the reality is is that if it just keeps going bad and it just keeps compiling the debt and it just complete it’s gonna burst at the end. Everybody knows that. The debtors know that, the creditors know that, you know what I mean? So I I I think, you know, it’s it’s advantageous for all parties involved to actually come to s to some sort of r resolution.

Michael Goldstein (10:39.435)
for for sure. You know, I mean th like I there’s a lot of good reasons that, you know, because of because of the debt. I mean, bankruptcy is not just everyone files. You I mean you there needs there’s a good faith requirement. You need to have a reason to file. But the reason’s not the same for everybody.

Sean Dennin (10:49.72)
Sure.

Sean Dennin (10:54.188)
Yep. Very good point.

Okay, so this is an interesting question because I think this is something that’s affecting all industries right now. Okay. And you mentioned earlier we have AI, we have these tools, we have these great things. Now, what I see happening is because we have these tools and we have these great things, we are becoming experts on everything across the board, of all things, right? So you’re going into your doctor and you have like a slight little, you know, pain in your elbow, and you already have the the complete diagnosis in your head, right? Like what it is.

It’s gonna be and everything like that. So we’ve seen that you know, in in the practice alone over at Birch Citadel, where you know, we’ll send something to somebody and very clearly you get like a 14-page chat GPT response of like, hey, but what about this? And have you considered, you know, the the you know the the habitability claims and this right? And you’re just like, okay, I get it. So with that being the table, with that being, you know, the the preface, you know, where’s the gap?

that you see like between what a client is actually asking for when they call and they’re like, Hey, listen, like I might need help with this situation versus like what they’re actually asking you to analyze. Like like where is that gap?

Michael Goldstein (12:05.128)
So it it’s interesting you say that because I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I get this long winded email which you know with a bunch of you know dashes in it and you know and this is why it is important and then all and okay, great. I recognize the chat GPT patterns too guys.

Sean Dennin (12:13.922)
Yeah.

Sean Dennin (12:19.884)
Yeah, and and at the bottom, please copy and paste this and send this to your prospective attorney.

Michael Goldstein (12:22.68)
Yeah. Absolutely. yeah, I’ve seen that too. So the thing is though

What I often tell people is listen, do you want to hire an attorney for their expertise, or do you want to hire me to be a proofreader and tell you why AI is not doing we’ve all heard the horror stories of the guy in New York who filed a summary judgment and and hallucinated cases that didn’t actually exist and got just barred for that. You you don’t take AI verbatim. You you’ve you’ve got to be careful it. But I think the real the real

Sean Dennin (12:47.17)
Yeah. Yep. We all know that story.

Michael Goldstein (12:54.76)
thing with with AI is yes, it it’s good for you as a debtor to use it to say, hey, these are all the things I I want to talk about. I I want that checklist, I want that hit list so that I make sure I ask my attorney everything. Maybe send send a letter ahead of time and yeah, I might end up having to charge for an extra thirty minutes as I’m reading an 18 page dissertation on something you could have said and I owe too much debt because I’m getting divorced. But

That aside, where I actually see the benefit of it, is actually in the practice of law, the the if how we make our practices more efficient. So one thing that we have done is we’re able to actually take a tool, it’s called Thinkerai, and combine it with our CRM system, which is Go High Level. And when somebody fills out a form,

Though they or even they just call, they they want to schedule a cons a consult. Our AI tool then gets on the phone, calls them back, and has a real honest conversation with them. Not thank you for calling, what time would you like to talk to the attorney? But it starts going through with some conditional logic and asking real questions like, you know, first of all, do you have do you have a mortgage? Yes I do. are you behind it? Yes, I am.

Is there an upcoming foreclosure? No, great. If yes, when is the date? If the date is in 48 hours, red flag it, send a text to me, send a text to my partner, and make damn sure that we are on the phone with you within five minutes because that’s serious. You know, rather, you know, asking all these questions do you you know, is there a judgment against you? Yes. Have you been served with a supplemental proceeding? You know, have is there wage attachment? All of these questions that used to take me 45 minutes to

an hour to go through this whole intake process before we even decide whether or not we want to you know we really should be talking about bankruptcy about debt settlement you know are we just are we defending a case whatnot and now the AI can triage just like when you go into the ER and you talk to that I hope is a nurse I don’t know whoever I talked to at the ER you know and they try to figure out do I need to see a doctor right now or do I can I can I wait 30 minutes because the guy coming in has got his his finger in in his other hand. Right? You know

Sean Dennin (15:01.804)
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Goldstein (15:03.554)
And now it turns that 45, 60 minute initial intake call into a five or 10 minute call that we can now decide, okay, I know what you’re going, let me tell you what I see right away. If this makes sense, let’s schedule a full follow-up so that this way you know we’re we’re being much more efficient. And the thing that people get afraid of is, my god, sounds like your paralyz, your paralegal is gonna be out of work. No. What it’s gonna do is it’s gonna make us the it’s gonna give us the ability to 10x the efficiency of our staff so that we can take.

Sean Dennin (15:32.943)
100%. 100%. Mike, and that’s that’s exactly that’s exactly what we do at Birch Citadel as well, right? Where it’s like, listen, it’s not going to take over the practice. It’s not going to replace everybody. But when you can utilize it and you can utilize the strengths and the tools and everything, and and Mike, you made a good point, and a point that I want to pivot to here next is

Michael Goldstein (15:33.418)
Not yeah.

Sean Dennin (15:53.997)
You know, things have changed and and you know, I’ve I’ve worked with attorneys my whole entire life. I had a marketing agency previously that worked with attorneys and everything. So, you know, one of the things that that I always stress on, and Mike, I know is important to you, and I know in the practice of your firm, that’s why you have AI answering systems and everything like immediate, is I think you know, the world has evolved and things happen fast, right? And and and that is where sometimes I see where, you know, we talk

About the experience side, right? Well, sometimes that experience is like, well, hey, listen, I’m a very experienced attorney. I’ve been doing this for 40 years. Yes, I know someone called my firm, but I will get back to them in the next two to three days when I have time and can put them on my calendar. They are gone. Okay. Like they have already called the next seven bankruptcy firms on that list. They already have four free consultations called like scheduled by then and everything, right? So,

Michael Goldstein (16:39.73)
don’t have two or three days.

Sean Dennin (16:54.06)
I’m glad you touched on that, Mike, about, you know, your use of AI and and how you’re doing that. And I kind of just wanted to pivot and just have a little conversation about because I’m I know, Mike, I know like that’s something that’s like critical in your firm. Like if if you text your firm, call your firm, fill out a form, do anything, there is immediate engagement, immediate response, immediate everything. So talk to me a little bit about that.

Michael Goldstein (17:14.216)
Well that you know perfect samples. So last night, 9.30, I just happened to be looking at my phone and I saw, you know, a a lead from somebody who basically has a foreclosure. and I know what happened with that person is they actually called in. They talked to our AI system. They got put through this. Now we found out through the AI system, by the way, that they’re starting the foreclosure process. They don’t have a sale date. They’ve all they’re only four months behind, which only four months, you know, it’s that’s not great, but it

the five months is the threshold to actually file the paperwork and all that. So what happened is it scheduled them for a call with me this afternoon. Foreclosure is still very important. And honestly, you know, if if it’s Friday, if we said, hey, you know, let’s schedule something on Monday, I never would have had the meeting because honestly, they would have found somebody else. They would have gone to Google and said bankruptcy attorney at me, foreclosure defense near me. They would have found someone that answered that and probably at 930 at night, by the way, they would have found someone that answered the phone. But

Sean Dennin (18:11.532)
Yep. Yep.

Michael Goldstein (18:14.066)
We did answer the phone, it just wasn’t a human. but honestly, I don’t even think they realized they were talking to an AI until they were about 90 seconds into it. because the the test has gotten to the point and you can pick the accents, and you know one one of things that we actually do is we cre we we picked an accent of this so this southern woman who like has has that southern drawl and nobody would expect that to be an AI.

Sean Dennin (18:16.504)
Yep.

Sean Dennin (18:40.724)
Ha ha ha.

Michael Goldstein (18:41.51)
So you know, and it I mean listen, people aren’t stupid. They can figure it out after after a little bit, but they don’t care. They what they care about is some ways.

Sean Dennin (18:48.908)
Yeah, but a a and Mike, let’s let’s talk about that for a second because I I I remember when we were implementing this in our firm

Same exact thing, right? There was that resist like, you know, like people aren’t gonna like it and everything. Listen, our our our one answering bot is very, very transparent. Tells them literally on the phone, hey, I am an AI answering assistant. I am designed to help you expedite the intake process and get you scheduled for an attorney intake call. Would you like to have a brief discussion with me, or would you prefer someone from our team call you tomorrow, right? Like, so it’s an immediate thing. And what I find is a lot of people enjoy that, right? Like, like they

Don’t have to schedule a call during business hours or during something. If they wanna have a quick conversation and give a quick overview and get the key facts out that we need and have that conversation at 10:30 p.m. California time, I don’t care, right? Like it’s it’s allow them to do that. So I think it I think it’s the blend, right? I think I think you know you’re gonna see a trend of some people going too far with it and trying to automate two things. A lot, you know, people you know.

Michael Goldstein (19:46.43)
Yeah.

Sean Dennin (19:49.837)
making up cases and actually presenting them in a courtroom, which, you know, happened a few years ago, which hopefully people have learned lessons from that. but yeah, so I mean I th I think there’s there’s al always gonna be a spectrum swing, but it’s it’s more about finding, you know, where are those gaps

Michael Goldstein (19:57.896)
Yeah.

Sean Dennin (20:06.188)
What will really help us? What will help us become more efficient? What will help us and and I can tell everybody, everybody listening to this call on the side this side of the bar, right, that is practicing law, you have to respond to people immediately. Like the world is so different. Access to information. Mike, I heard an interesting thing someone told me.

They said in 2026, okay, interesting, interesting fact. In 2026, the average human consumes more information in 24 hours than the average human did in an entire lifespan in the 1700s. Right? Like, so if you think about that, like we are just inundated with information. We are information overload. Like our our brains are trying to catch up with the computers and the systems and everything that’s happening every single day. So with that, you know, everyone’s like, there’s a rise in 80.

No, there’s not a rise in ADHD, there’s a rise in just attention, right? Like the distracted attention and everything. So, yes, again, I think that’s why it’s so critical that when someone is in need and they’re reaching out and you’ve invested the dollars, you’re spending the money to be the top of Google, you know, you’re you’ve invested into your AEO search and you’ve invested into these things to actually give yourself a chance, give yourself an opportunity when someone searches that out. but to see so many people just make that investment, but not.

Michael Goldstein (21:19.301)
Yeah.

Sean Dennin (21:27.386)
not answer the phone is is kinda crazy to me.

Michael Goldstein (21:29.661)
Well, y you know the funny thing is it it depends on I think on the area of law that you practice to. Because if I’m doing estate planning and and someone’s coming to me and listen, I mean I I’m thinking about my 10 year plan is very different than I’m afraid to go to the mailbox. I don’t want to answer the phone because I don’t want to see what’s there. I’ve got a foreclosure coming up in three days. My car was just taken out of my driveway. You know, I mean th these are things that it you know

Sean Dennin (21:40.728)
True.

Sean Dennin (21:53.4)
Yep. Yep.

Michael Goldstein (21:57.946)
my way I just got paid and I can’t actually pay anybody because what what happened like 15% of my pay was just taken out and it wasn’t from taxes. Right? So yeah these are the this is not stuff that people are willing to wait. And honestly

Sean Dennin (22:03.48)
Yep. Yep. My my my bank account’s frozen. I can’t send any money out of it.

Michael Goldstein (22:13.117)
And I hate to say it because no it doesn’t matter how good you are, it matters how fast you are at this point because people are not waiting. They’re not they’re not shopping around, you know, they they’ve got a real problem, you know, and and I and I look at it no different than you know going back into the medical situation, you know, if if I was in a catastrophic accident and my arm was chopped off.

I’m not gonna wait and find geez, I wonder if this doctor takes my insurance. No, I’m going to the first first ER. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I if I, you know, if my if my tooth hurts so much that it, you know, that I can’t sleep I even slept for two nights, I’m not shopping for dentists. Who who’s got 24 hour service and where can I get into right now at 3 a.m.? And

Sean Dennin (22:43.886)
Closest ER, doesn’t matter the ratings, doesn’t matter their Google star rating or anything, right? Like I have a problem, I need a solution.

Sean Dennin (23:04.696)
Can fix this problem right now.

Michael Goldstein (23:06.107)
Just bankruptcy is the emergency service. It i it is. It’s bankruptcy, criminal defense it

Sean Dennin (23:09.91)
It is. I completely agree. Criminal Mike, I was gonna say the same thing. It’s criminal defense, right? It’s someone who

I got a you know DUI at three o’clock in the morning. my god, I gotta get this resolved immediately. I can’t hang this, you know, have this hanging over my head. I’m calling somebody, the first person I talk to and says, Yeah, no problem, first time DUI, we’ll put you up for this, we’ll get you in an ADR, you know, and kind of and just it’s that it’s that relief, right? Like we’re human beings. We have a pain point, we want it to be relieved. So the minute they speak to somebody and they talk to a competent bankruptcy attorney who says, Yes, you have options, you have things that a panic kind of subscribe.

sides and guess what? Attorney chosen, right? Like that’s you know, but you need to be in position. You need that you need to be there and you need to answer the phone. So sorry, go ahead Mike.

Michael Goldstein (23:51.741)
I

Michael Goldstein (23:55.527)
Yeah. I was gonna say, but with that said, I think the the other part of that is we get to the point now and as we start using AI, as we get better, as we get more referrals, we also don’t have to take on every client. And does so you don’t have to take that 3 a.m. freak out call. That may maybe that’s not the client you want to work with. and I think that’s one of the things that this stuff kind of also helps us with, the with the AI, with the triaging. It’s

Sean Dennin (24:08.546)
Yes.

Michael Goldstein (24:23.482)
If I program right or if I find the right person who knows how to code that AI, knows how to code that appointment center, it can get those red flags up and maybe I don’t want to schedule that appointment. And that and that that honestly to me is more important. There are people who I have a conversation with and I immediately say, not at you don’t have enough money to hire me. You I’m not working for you for $2,000 an hour.

just not gonna happen. It’s not worth the risk. This this is a bar complaint waiting to happen. This this is a malpractice claim waiting to happen because you’re gonna you’re gonna want to force me to do something that is illegal. And that’s the other benefit of I don’t want to have to spend an hour figuring that out. I want a tool that can take everything in my brain and then it can repeat it and it can take that you know mic brain and at scale it you know it can answer questions.

Sean Dennin (24:50.306)
Got it, got it.

Sean Dennin (25:14.446)
Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. All right. So Mike, I know you know, in terms of this being the first episode and everything, I know one of the things that you wanted to do is, you know

Get get from the audience and get from the listeners as as this grows, you know, what else should we be exploring here? What else will we you know, what else would we like to talk about and things? So I’m gonna put you in the hot seat first on that, because I know you’re gonna be asking your guests that. So what would you like to see explored on the 341, Mike? Like what what areas would you like to see people dive down into? Like, again, you know, I know I know your passion for this and I know why you develop this and and why you wanna put it out there, but what do you what do you want to see? What’s what’s success look like over the next three months?

Michael Goldstein (25:57.491)
Yeah, you know what I what I want to see is I want to see people start talking about some of the newer pieces, newer lit litigation elements that are coming in, some some of the things that also affect the American public in terms of what they actually care about. And what I mean by that is people care about not just what you what it cost to buy a loaf of bread or eggs, but there there are things like student loans that you know the the DOJ in the Department of Education in 2022 updated the way that student loans

Are handled. And then in 2025, the DOJ now has come out with that attestation form that a lot of you people maybe don’t know actually because it is so new. Where now we now can file adversary proceedings, fill out a form, send them to an offer compromise, send it over to the DOJ attorney, and see if we can just work something out before we have to litigate something. Before with student loans, it was like you got to basically be a paraplegic, you know, or you’re gonna be 90 years old. No, you can’t discharge your student loans. Now there are ways.

Around that. I want to talk about those kind of topics. Things that are changing and evolving and making the practice a little bit easier. I want to talk about the fact that you know what? We are on Zoom for every single hearing now. What’s that like to you? How has that changed your practice? Because before I would have to get up, I would have to drive into court in Boston, which would be an hour and a half drive. I’d sit there for an hour and a half waiting for my case to be called. My clients freaking out, elbowing me the whole time. What do I say about that? What do say about that?

You know, and now

It’s a little different. First of all, half the trustees don’t even let you in until you hear it. So you don’t get to hear anybody, which honestly, I know, I like and don’t like. I would love to hear what you guys think about that. but you know, I don’t have to, I don’t waste three hours of my day in the car anymore. I can get a lot more done. But at the same time, there, you know, we lose that personal touch. There there is that no, you know, flesh to flesh shaking hands and any of that. What do you think about that? Those are the kind of things that I want to talk about: is just how things available.

Sean Dennin (27:36.248)
Shit.

Michael Goldstein (27:58.915)
evolving. know, go for those of you who I’m gonna age myself a little bit here, but we’re practicing in 2004 and before. Remember what happened in 2005 when the code was completely rewritten and everything changed. Well I think we’re at that point again now. So I’d love to hear your thoughts, you know, and love to talk to people about how has it changed for you, not just how has it changed.

Sean Dennin (28:21.346)
Got it. Awesome. Awesome, man. All right. So what what should we expect from here, Mike? What what what’s the frequency? Like how how often should we be tuning in? Like what what’s the expectation for three four one here?

Michael Goldstein (28:33.468)
because we’re brand new so honestly I’m gonna give you guys an answer that you clientate when you give to them. It depends. So the the reality is we expect to be putting on an episode

Sean Dennin (28:40.43)
The favorite attorney answer of all time.

Michael Goldstein (28:50.418)
Once a week. it’s going, it’s gonna hit every Friday at 5 p.m. we’re not gonna when we’re not gonna be doing live like this one is. typically where you know it’s gonna be recorded. And then what’s gonna happen is at the end of that episode, it’s gonna be on YouTube, it’s gonna be on Facebook, it’s gonna look we’re gonna have clips of it on TikTok.

Sean Dennin (28:51.5)
Actually.

Michael Goldstein (29:10.78)
So you you can go and you can listen, you can you can just see the highlights of it. and then honestly we’re gonna have a forum where people can engage and just have a discussion about what was said on it. So that that’s really the goal here is we we wanna build a community of like-minded bankruptcy professionals who can talk about what’s going on in the practice, what’s not and not just what’s marketing, you know, what I are you using Facebook ads, are you doing local, you know, SEO, are you doing LS?

Th there’s a thousand ages out there, they’ll talk to you about that. Don’t worry.

This isn’t this isn’t that show. in complete transparency, Sean, I do run an agency as well. so I do, and I have been in the AEO, GEO, AIO, whatever IO you want to use, world, SEO world, since you know, 1999. I’ve been doing it longer than Google’s been in existence. So we will talk a little bit about that, but this isn’t a marketing, this isn’t the fancy success podcast. We’re talking about things that actually affect your lives, not so much things that affect your clients’ lives.

Sean Dennin (29:47.458)
Yep, yep, I know.

Sean Dennin (29:53.976)
No.

Sean Dennin (30:11.062)
Makes sense, makes sense. Awesome. Awesome. Well Mike, thank you so much again for inviting me on. I hope to come back again. now we don’t we don’t, you know, talk about bankruptcy, but just the practice of law, right? Like cause you and I have had so many discussions about even, you know

the drafting tools and the AI tools and just everything that’s out there and just like, you know, as this continues to evolve. So I know I’m gonna be tuning in. So look forward to hearing that. And and like Mike just said, you know, it it doesn’t hurt when you jump on someone’s podcast who is also a 20 year plus digital marketing expert who’s gonna take some of your content and get some eyeballs on your firm and everything like that. So take advantage of that for sure. But Mike again, thank you so much for having me on and yeah, great episode.

Michael Goldstein (30:55.647)
Appreciate Thanks, Sean, for for hosting today and everybody else. This is Attorney Mike Goldstein for Beyond the 341, and we’ll see you next week.