Breaking the cycle of sending Black debtors to the least protective form of bankruptcy starts with the attorneys advising them — but most of them don’t see racial gaps as a problem, Bloomberg reported. Faced with data on racial disparities in bankruptcy decisions, attorneys guiding those clients defended their decisions as providing the best advice for individuals’ situations, according to a study. The survey found most bankruptcy attorneys either claimed no knowledge of widespread racial disparities in bankruptcy or expressed little interest in addressing them. “I found exactly what all of the research that inspired my project found, which is two things — one, either they don’t know [the racial disparity exists], or they’re not interested in tackling it,” said Emony Robertson, a Howard law school student who conducted the survey with LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation. Past research shows that more than half of Black filers are steered toward chapter 13 — twice the rate of White, Hispanic or Asian filers. That disparity is significant for Black filers who saw chapter 13 issues exacerbated by the pandemic, which drove job losses, added unexpected medical bills, and a widened wealth and homeownership gap. The ongoing research on racial gaps should force bankruptcy attorneys to take a harder look at themselves and the advice they give clients, said Jim Haller, education director at the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. “It’s our role to make sure that implicit bias does not play a role in terms of chapter choice,” he said. “I thoroughly believe that the buck always stops at my desk, so if there’s a disparity out there, I need to examine it and see if it’s affecting the advice that I give. That’s it. It’s not on somebody else to prove it to me.”
