The Government Shutdown is now 10 days old.
In a recent article that I wrote for the Bankruptcy Law Network I discussed how the bankruptcy courts will be impacted by the government shutdown.
In its initial statement regarding the possible shutdown of the Federal Courts, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for the Federal Judiciary advised that the courts would remain open until at least October 15, 2013.
Today, the U.S Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced that they will now be open until at least October 17, 2013.
Should the bankruptcy courts close due to the shutdown, the following results are likely:
- All hearings will be cancelled. This is a particular problem in Chapter 13 cases where the payment plan needs to be confirmed by the court.
- Meetings of Creditors will likely be cancelled. Without the meeting the discharge of debts in the bankruptcy will be delayed.
- Although it appears that the Case Management/Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system, which is the Federal Judiciary’s
national electronic-filing system will likely remain open to accept filings, there will likely be no court staff to process the filings.
