A few months ago, Slipster Bob Lawless, former Slipster Deborah Thorne, and I published Debts Grip: Risk and Consumer Bankruptcy. The book draws on eleven years of data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project to document the financial consequences of decades of risk privatization for individuals and families across the United States. Some people ultimately will file bankruptcy. Over the past few months, during panel discussions, podcasts, and interviews, we have been asked about the value of people filing bankruptcy earlier. We (well, at least I) think that for many people, filing sooner would be advantageous. People deplete their assets in the years they struggle before filing and suffer psychologically and physically from the stress of unmanageable debts. Based on our data, the stigma of bankruptcy and the inability to make good on their contracts remains a barrier to filing. So, how to encourage people to file? And, relatedly, how to make people feel “good” about their bankruptcies such that they have a better chance at succeeding when they are released post-bankruptcy into the same economic and social structure that may be stacked against them?

I recently spoke about Debt’s Grip as part of the National Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys‘ meeting. There I saw Adrienne Hines, a bankruptcy attorney from Ohio who I knew from her social media presence as The Lady Like Lawyer (Instagram, TikTok). I picked up her new book, Bankruptcy Magic: The Life-Changing Power of Debt Relief With Dignity. The book puts into a written guide format for people the core message of her social media: that filing bankruptcy can be an effective solution to unmanageable debt challenges for which people do not need to feel ashamed. Adrienne’s social media accounts are an excellent resource for struggling debtors. Her book may be even more excellent. It is part of the answer to the question of how to encourage people to file sooner.

The book includes what you may except from a debtor oriented book: details about the consumer bankruptcy process, written such that people with no legal experience or knowledge will understand what they will find when they work with a bankruptcy attorney. More importantly, through her decades of experience as a debtor attorney, Adrienne captures what our nationwide CBP data show about the people who file bankruptcy. People who are thinking about filing will find themselves in the book. And the book is framed around showing people that they are not alone, teaching people a digestible sketch of the history of how incurring debt became ubiquitous and necessary in the United States, and gently convincing people that the shame and guilt they are feeling are worth overcoming.

As a researcher, my favorite part is Chapter 4, How Debt Accumulates. It digs into “the root causes of debt” to allow people to “achieve two powerful outcomes.” First to dispel some of the stigma of debt. And second to equip people with the knowledge to “take meaningful steps toward a healthier financial future on the other side of the bankruptcy process.” In the list of root causes is what Bob, Debb, and I (and other co-investigators on the CBP) have learned from bankruptcy filers across the country for decades about the precipitators of their filings: people struggle with debt because of job loss, medical issues, and changes in family structure. In Debt’s Grip, we also discuss how single women wrote about domestic abuse and the financial abuse that accompanied that abuse. In Bankruptcy Magic, Adrienne includes a subpart about “the hidden dangers of scams and financial abuse,” including domestic violence and preying on elderly family members for financial help.

These two examples are part of why I think this book is part of the answer helping people file bankruptcy sooner, if bankruptcy will help with their situations. Once people find an attorney (or even think about bankruptcy), for many people there potentially is a lag time before filing. For many people, that lag time likely will benefit from being shortened. And to the extent the book can reach people prior to their naturally thinking about bankruptcy, it likely will be helpful to some to prompt thoughts about legal solutions and to gain knowledge about what not to do with their assets, such as liquidating retirement accounts to pay creditors. Whether people’s enhanced knowledge will allow them to “take meaningful steps toward a healthier financial future” post-bankruptcy is an empirical question. My hunch is that tackling the bankruptcy process and their finances with confidence will enhance people’s post-bankruptcy financial situations because it will give them a psychological boost. That boost, however, may not be enough to overcome the economic and social structural situation they return to, such as continued (or new) medical problems or shifting job situations. That is, as we detail in Debt’s Grip, the bankruptcy system is not a solution to the decades of privatization of risk onto individuals that previously was borne by the government or employers.

Still, when I read Bankruptcy Magic, I immediately thought — this is an aspect of the answer to how to encourage people who will benefit from bankruptcy to file sooner. Find the book on Adrienne Hines’s website and Amazon.