Law Offices of Devane, Fogarty & Ribezzo

07/07/2026

Bankruptcy and Judgment Proof: Why "They Can't Touch Me" Isn't the Same as "I'm Safe"

Most of my bankruptcy cases — over 90% — are Chapter 7 filings. Usually, everything goes according to plan: clients keep what they own, and their debts disappear as a legal obligation.
But about 10-15% of my Chapter 7 clients fall into a different category — judgment proof.
Judgment proof means a creditor can sue you and win, but the judgment they get is worthless. It's a legal way of saying you can't get blood from a stone. A judgment is just a piece of paper saying you owe money — it's not money itself. To collect, a creditor needs to attach a bank account, garnish wages, or put a lien on property. If you don't have any of those things exposed, the judgment just sits there.
A common example: if Social Security is your only income, banks are supposed to automatically protect it from attachment. That doesn't always happen cleanly — sometimes you end up arguing it in court — but the protection exists. Often creditors don't even know where you bank, which is part of why so many collection lawsuits are really just fishing expeditions to get you into a courtroom and ask questions.
Here's the catch: none of this protects you if you ignore the paperwork. Skip a hearing, miss a deadline, and things can happen in your absence that shouldn't have — even when you had a good defense. Defenses have to be raised. Nobody assumes them for you.
I explain this to clients who fit this profile, and it matters to bankruptcy trustees too — at the creditors' meeting, they'll often ask whether the filer understood their situation and chose to file anyway. Fair question, because judgment proof status isn't permanent. It's based on your circumstances right now. A new job, an inheritance, any change — and creditors who were sitting on worthless judgments can suddenly collect.
So why file if you're already judgment proof? A few reasons keep coming up: people are done with the calls and letters. Credit affects more than borrowing — insurance rates, rental applications, all of it — and bankruptcy resets that faster than most people expect. Within a year of doing the legwork, credit can look genuinely good again.
But the biggest reason is this: being judgment proof today doesn't protect you tomorrow. Every one of those judgments is still sitting there, waiting for your circumstances to change. A Chapter 7 discharge is permanent. It doesn't depend on you staying in a rough spot — once it's discharged, it's gone for good.
Being judgment proof protects you today. Filing protects you no matter what today turns into.
Questions about your situation? Give us a call.

06/23/2026

https://dfrlawri.com/exemptions-in-chapter-7-bankruptcy-choosing-the-right-box-for-your-stuff/

When people first sit down to talk about Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the question I hear most often is: "Am I going to lose my house? My car? Everything I own?"

06/23/2026

Exemptions in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy: The Box and the Cleaver
Here's how I think about Chapter 7 exemptions, and it might help you understand what you actually get to keep.
Imagine two boxes. One along the left wall, one along the right. They're different sizes—different dollar amounts. Each one has labels: furniture, jewelry, clothing, money in the bank, real estate equity, life insurance, wildcard exemption. Everything the law says you can protect.
Now imagine Chapter 7 as a cleaver. It comes in and cuts off everything that sticks out of the boxes. What fits inside the box? You keep it. What doesn't fit? The trustee gets it.
My job is to figure out which box to use and pack your stuff into it as strategically as possible.
Here's what matters: Rhode Island lets you choose. You can use Rhode Island exemptions or federal exemptions—whichever box protects more of your stuff. That choice is huge.
Let me give you real examples.
Your house. You own it. The bank has a lien representing what you owe on the mortgage. Your equity is what matters—the difference between what your house would sell for and what you owe. Rhode Island's homestead exemption is $550,000 for an owner-occupied residence. That's very solid protection, and in thirty years, it's covered almost everybody I've worked with. But Rhode Island also protects your vehicle, household goods, jewelry, and a significant amount in savings—plus retirement accounts in many cases.
The federal exemption has a different feature: if you don't use the federal homestead exemption (which is much smaller), you can add that unused amount to your wildcard pool. That creates flexibility. Exemption amounts are per filer, so if you're married, you generally double all of them.
Your furniture. If you bought a living room set for seven grand ten years ago, it's probably not worth seven grand anymore. It's worth what someone on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist would actually pay for it. That's the number that goes in the box.
Your jewelry. Don't give me an appraised value. Those are inflated and unrealistic. Give me what a pawn shop would offer you in cash, or what a private buyer would pay. That's the real number.
Here's something critical: I'm not a private investigator. I'm relying on you to tell me what you own and what you owe. You need to list every creditor—every entity you owe money to, anywhere. Don't just use your credit report. Credit reports are incomplete. If you rely solely on them, you'll lose creditors, meaning they won't be discharged and you'll still owe them after bankruptcy. Use the credit report as a backup tool, but your primary source is you disclosing everything.
Here's the bottom line: most people filing Chapter 7 in Rhode Island keep their house, their car, their retirement accounts, and their belongings. The cleaver doesn't find much sticking out because we've chosen the right box and packed it right.
Exemptions have limits. If you've got home equity way beyond the exemption or a luxury car, that's a conversation. But for most people, you're fine.
The key is being honest about what you own, who you owe, and valuing it realistically.
If you're thinking about Chapter 7, let's talk about which box works for you. Call us for a free consultation.

06/08/2026

Do you actually need a trust — or do you just think you do?
A conversation we have more often than you’d think.

We see it regularly. Someone comes in convinced they need a trust. Maybe a friend mentioned they have one. Maybe they read an article. Maybe a cousin knows a lawyer in another state who does general work and dropped the word into a conversation. And now they feel like they’re missing something.

Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not. But a lot of lawyers will simply take their money and draft one either way.

Trusts can be expensive — sometimes very expensive. We’ve seen clients come in with documents that cost them thousands of dollars. Impressive looking things: thick binders, tabs, professional packaging. One client told us their comprehensive estate plan — which included a trust — ran over twenty-five thousand dollars. The documents looked serious. But when we sat down and looked at what they actually had, they didn’t fully understand what it did, it didn’t work well with their other documents, or worse — they believed it solved a problem it didn’t actually solve. The attorney had already been paid. And in many cases, the client won’t find out it didn’t work until it’s too late to fix it.

A trust is a bucket — with a lot of rules attached

The way we think about a trust is simple: it’s a bucket where you put things. Assets go in, and the bucket comes with rules you set about how those assets are managed — while you’re alive, after you die, or both. That’s a lot of control, and in the right situation, it’s genuinely valuable.

There are revocable trusts — meaning you can change or cancel them at any time. And irrevocable trusts — meaning once it’s done, it’s done. There are trusts set up during your lifetime and trusts created through a will. Those are real distinctions with real consequences, and they matter depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

But here’s the thing about tools: if someone hands you a hammer and asks you to drive screws into a wall, you’re going to look at them like they’re crazy. The wrong tool doesn’t just fail to help — it can make things worse.

It starts with the problem, not the tool

Before recommending a trust, we try to understand what problem someone actually needs to solve. Because the right answer depends entirely on the situation:

A child with special needs? There’s a specific trust designed to supplement their care without disqualifying them from benefits they’d otherwise receive for free.
A beneficiary with a gambling problem or poor financial judgment? There are tools to protect against that.
Minor children? That changes the conversation entirely.
Concerns about nursing home costs or asset protection? There are options — but timing and structure matter enormously.
We also spend time explaining probate honestly — because most lawyers who push trusts are really selling you on avoiding probate. But probate isn’t purely bad. Like most things in life, it has pros and cons. So does a trust. Our job isn’t to steer you toward the more expensive option. It’s to make sure you understand both so you can make the decision that actually fits your life.

When you come in, we’re going to ask questions and actually listen to the answers. If a trust makes sense for your situation, we’ll tell you why — and what kind, and what it will and won’t do. If it doesn’t make sense, we’ll tell you that too. You came in for help, not for a product.

Not sure whether a trust is right for you? Come in and talk. We’ll figure out what problem you’re actually trying to solve — and then find the right tool for it.

06/02/2026

When You Leave Our Office, You Leave With Your Originals — And That Matters More Than You Think

Estate Planning · Rhode Island

We see it more than we should. A family comes in after losing a loved one, ready to move forward with probate, and they hand us a copy of a will. Sometimes they don’t even know it’s a copy. It was presented to them as the real thing, and they trusted that.
Here’s the problem: in Rhode Island, if the original will cannot be produced, the law presumes it was intentionally destroyed by the person who made it — and destruction is treated as revocation. That means the will may be considered invalid, as if it never existed. Depending on the judge, the standard for rebutting that presumption can be very difficult to meet. What should have been a straightforward probate becomes an uphill legal fight.
There’s another piece most people don’t know about. A properly executed will includes more than the will itself — it requires a separate witness affidavit, signed at the time of ex*****on. Without that document attached, probating the will becomes significantly harder. Some attorneys hold onto that page too.
Why would an attorney do that? The honest answer is that it creates future business. When you eventually need to probate the estate — or you need to update your documents — you have to call them. They retain your originals, you hit a wall, and suddenly they have new work. You’re not a former client, you’re a dependency. The cost to you is that you leave the office without what you think you’re leaving with.
We think that’s wrong. So here’s what we do instead.
When you have your estate planning done here:
• You leave with your original documents — every page, every attachment
• You also receive complete copies of everything
• Nothing is held back, nothing is retained by this office
• We walk you through what you have and why each piece matters
Our office could burn down. We could retire. Something could happen to us. None of that should matter to you — because you already have everything you need. You paid for documents that work without us. You should leave with documents that work without us.
If you want to call us down the road, we’re happy to help. But you won’t be forced to. That’s the difference.
Concerned about documents you received from another attorney?
We’re glad to review what you have and tell you honestly where things stand. No pressure, no agenda.