Bankruptcy Appeal Process | Arizona Bankruptcy Laws
Hi I’m Kathi Sandweiss, I’m an appellate lawyer here at Jaburg and Wilk.
Can you appeal a bankruptcy?
You can appeal an order from bankruptcy court just like you can appeal an order from a civil court, from superior court. There’s certainly some differences that are really important. Perhaps, the main one is the very short time period for appeal.
What types of things can I appeal in a bankruptcy?
The kinds of things that are appealed from the bankruptcy court will typically involved whether or not someone was granted a discharge. And as you can imagine, to the debtor, the debtor is going to want to discharge. The creditor is going to want a denial of discharge. And so that’s typically a very adversarial issue. It’ll come up in an adversary proceeding and then it will typically be appealed by one side or the other.
Will my case be heard in a regular appeals court?
When you file your Notice of Appeal with the bankruptcy court but then there’s a determination that needs to be made as to whether you want your appeal to be heard by the district court or by the bankruptcy appellate panel, the BAP. And so another big difference between a civil appeal and a bankruptcy appeal is that there’s a sort of intermediate level of appeal, which would be before you would get to the ninth circuit. So one of the determinations that we make when we’re considering your bankruptcy appeal is whether we want a district court judge -who may not have as much experience in bankruptcy – to hear your appeal, or whether we want to go to BAP where it’s all bankruptcy judges, and they do definitely have lots of experience in bankruptcy.
Can I keep my bankruptcy lawyer during the appeal?
We’ll make every effort to consult with your bankruptcy lawyer. We love to have the trial lawyer or the bankruptcy lawyer read the briefs, give us their input before the briefs are filed. And then if we’re representing the appellate and our goal is to have the matter reversed and remanded to the bankruptcy court, your bankruptcy lawyer then will take the case over again once you get back to the bankruptcy court.
By: Kathi Sandweiss