Anyone who spends time reading our blogs see a lot of stories and information about bankers and lawyers and the whole lending and collecting system.  Most of it is not pleasant.  You read blogs filled with shameful acts and terrible scenarios where creditors go far beyond the realm of decent practices and stoop to unimaginable lows.  You hear recounting of elderly guarantors coming close to losing their homes and retirement assets and much more.  What you rarely hear is how upstanding and honorable a banker or lawyer is.  The lawyer I am currently working with is both honorable and helpful and truly cares about the people who’s files he works on.

Second Wind is extremely good at protecting our clients and avoiding disaster, but no matter how good, there are scenarios that are out of everyone’s control.  One of my current clients had a case that was far out of his control and rapidly slipping out of the control of this office.  We had done everything possible, but we just could not make the situation resolve in a positive way.  It got so bad that the bank pushed for an ex parte motion for receivership.  What this means in lay mans terms is the bank was asking their lawyer to file for a hearing to take away the assets of my client without his knowledge.  It is their right, but it was during negotiations for a sale and was motivated by emotion and poor choices on the bank’s side.

The lawyer immediately notified my client of the hearing date and supplied my office with material pertinent to the case so we were able to mount a defense.  That alone is beyond his job description and a truly honorable and beneficial act done solely to help my client stay alive financially.  That act alone would have earned him gratitude, but he went a step further.

At the hearing, the judge offered the bank an immediate receivership if they modified their documentation to fix some minor statue limitations.  This would have been fatal to our process and most likely would have resulted in my client being unable to continue any plan of action forcing him into a full bankruptcy as it would have been his only option.  The lawyer prevented this.  He asked the judge to grant my client more time to resolve the issues on our end and secure his position.

Anyone who just read that sentence and is not floored does not understand the gravity of what that man did.  He chose the moral high road rather than dragging my client kicking and screaming into financial death.  This lawyer chose honor.  He did not hide behind the fact it was not his problem.  He did not choose to not make a choice.  He made a choice, and it was the right choice.

Now I cannot send him a gift or even tell his boss how good of a job this man does as we work on opposite sides of the table and it would be a conflict of interests issue.  Instead I am writing this blog so that, even unnamed, this man can get some type of recognition for making a choice few people do anymore.  I am thanking him personally and on behalf of my client for taking the one step that will allow us to succeed and in succeeding, save my client from ruin.  What the media fails to tell you about the many guarantors who lose to debt are the repercussions.  Most of our clients are the sole or majority bread winner in their household.  This means without the business they are going to be in trouble.  They can miss mortgage and car payments, face foreclosure and repossession, and that isn’t even the worst part.  The worst part is the emotional toll.

A business owner that fails feels shamed, they tend to pull away from friends and family, unable to express how sorry they are for a failure that is largely not their fault.  Some owners lose their marriage over the issues of debts.  Having no money and facing foreclosure on your home with children in the house is emotionally damaging and many spouses blame the one who began the business.  After all, without that husband or wife they would not be in jeopardy.

So this lawyer saved our deal, definitely kept my client out of bankruptcy and prevented many other issues.  This man could have potentially lost his home, wife, children, and on the list goes.

I tip my hat to this lawyer and hope that more like him are out there.