Law on Rice

I’m lucky enough to be getting really great experience working for a bankruptcy lawyer these days. Part of what I really enjoy doing is the nuts and bolts work of preparing all the forms that comprise the bankruptcy petition.

But as I fill out the bankruptcy forms, I have two nagging questions in the back of my head: (1) what’s the source of authority that allows the courts to require compliance with the forms and (2) how do I know—legally—whether I’ve responded sufficiently to any particular item required by the form?

Perhaps not surprisingly, I did not see anything in Title 11 specifically referring to the forms. The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure do, of course, refer to them as the “Official Forms.” Indeed Rule 1007(b)(1) requires that a debtor file a list of schedules “as prescribed by the appropriate Official Forms, if any” when filing the bankruptcy petition. More to the point, however, is Rule 9009 (“Forms”):

Except as otherwise provided in Rule 3016(d), the Official Forms prescribed by the Judicial Conference of the United States shall be observed and used with alterations as may be appropriate. Forms may be combined and their contents rearranged to permit economies in their use. The Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts may issue additional forms for use under the Code. The forms shall be construed to be consistent with these rules and the Code.

So there’s the authority. In addition, I found some of the answer to my question about compliance in the Advisory Committee Notes to Rule 9009. For example, the ACNs say:

The use of the Official Forms has generally been held subject to a “rule of substantial compliance” and some of these rules, for example Rule 1002, specifically state that the filed document need only “conform substantially” to the Official Form.

Standards like “substantial compliance” make my head swim, but at least it’s something to chew on for a while. Maybe the instructions or committee notes will have more guidance for any given form. Of note, it looks like there is no way to really effectively keep track of the Judicial Conference for changes to the forms—other than to read the reports from the proceedings. As I write this, the last report was over a year ago in March 2008.