Starting in 2008, the Bankruptcy Rules Committee has been working on creating new, “modernized” forms for consumer bankruptcy. Currently, there is one form for everyone from massively large corporations down to the struggling single parent. In an attempt to make things easier and better for the individual person, the Committee has developed these new forms. They are part of the Committee’s report from September 2011. I extracted the pertinent portion: Tab 7, pages 175-315 for easier review. (The full report covering a variety of subjects is a whopping 514 pages long.)
The stated goals of the project are to “improve the official bankruptcy forms and to improve the interface between the forms and available technology.” One of the bulleted criteria is to “streamline the look and feel of the forms, making them inviting and easier to read.” As Katie Porter pointed out in her Credit Slips posting about them, “the new forms are really long—way longer than the current forms as completed in the typical consumer case.”
One wonders how making them so incredibly long fits with the “streamlining” goal.
These are still just draft versions of the forms. More work will no doubt be done before they are presented for public comment. Still, it’s a good idea to give them a look and be prepared to make input when they do come out with the public comment version. The stated intent is to have all the draft forms published for comment in August 2012.
The Committee retained the Center for Clear Communication, Inc. a recognized expert on forms design. Among other things, the Center was involved with very successfully redesigning and simplifying several IRS tax forms. I am a little surprised at the length of the instructions in these forms, but since this is still a draft, maybe that will be corrected.
They do note, on p178 (page 4 of Tab 7), that many comments were made about the length of the forms during testing. They acknowledge the length but point out that in some cases, its due to combining previously single forms and in other cases, new instructions and checklists were added. Since not all forms will need to be filed, the entire package may not be that long. Read the rest of this entry »
