Petition prep reference
The pre-filing petition review checklist
A pre-filing review is not a second reading of the petition. Reading a finished petition front to back feels thorough and catches very little, because attention decays across sixty pages and the reader is checking for everything at once. A structured review works the opposite way: five short passes, each hunting one category of error, each with a defined stopping point. Reviewers are good at categories and bad at everything.
The passes below are ordered by cost of failure. Identity errors are cheap to fix before filing and expensive after. Arithmetic errors are mechanical and findable. Cross-form inconsistencies are the ones that surface under oath at the §341 meeting, because that is exactly what a trustee reads for. Completeness and the filing package come last because they are checklist work rather than judgment work.
Pass 1 — Identity and venue
| Check | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Debtor legal name | Matches the government ID character for character, including suffixes and hyphenated surnames — not the version written on the intake sheet. |
| Other names used in the last 8 years | Maiden and prior married names, legal name changes, nicknames appearing on credit accounts, and any DBA. Cross-check the credit report header. |
| Social Security number | Full number on Form 121 read back against the card, and the last four on Form 101 matching it. A transposition here follows the client into the discharge record. |
| Address, county, and address history | Venue turns on where the debtor resided for the greater portion of the 180 days before filing, so check the address history rather than today’s address. County drives division. |
| Prior cases | Every filing in the last 8 years with case number, chapter, and disposition — this drives discharge eligibility under §727(a)(8) and the stay limits under §362(c)(3) and (c)(4). |
| Chapter, joint status, spouse data | Chapter box and joint-versus-individual correct, and a non-filing spouse handled consistently on Schedule I and the means test. |
Pass 2 — Internal math
This pass assumes nothing the software displayed. The issue is not the calculation engine; it is that a wrong input produces a confidently correct-looking total, and totals are what the trustee reads first.
| Form | Arithmetic to re-run |
|---|---|
| Schedule I | Income lines sum to the stated total, payroll deductions are subtracted rather than added, Debtor 1 and Debtor 2 columns stay separate, and combined monthly income carries forward correctly. |
| Schedule J | Expense lines total, dependents match the household used on Schedule I and the means test, and monthly net income is recomputed by hand from the I and J totals rather than accepted from the screen. |
| Form 122A-1 or 122C-1 | Six full calendar months before the month of filing — not a rolling 180 days, no partial months. Averaged over six, annualized by twelve, compared to the current median for household size and state. |
| Schedules D and E/F | Claim amounts total to the figures on the summary, and any claim split between secured and unsecured portions adds back to the full balance. |
| Form 106Sum | Asset and liability totals equal the underlying schedules. A summary that does not tie is the fastest signal that a schedule was edited afterward. |
Pass 3 — Cross-form consistency
This is the pass that earns its time. Each pair below tells the same story from two directions, and a trustee preparing for the meeting reads them side by side.
| Pair | What has to reconcile |
|---|---|
| Schedule I vs Form 122A-1 | They will differ — Schedule I is a snapshot at filing, the means test a six-month lookback. What matters is that the difference has a documented reason and is disclosed where the forms call for it. |
| Schedule J vs Schedule D | Every mortgage or vehicle payment on J should match a secured creditor on D, and every secured debt on D should show a payment on J or an explanation. A payment with no lien is an error or a fact needing disclosure. |
| Schedules A/B vs Schedule C | Each exempted item traces to a described asset at the same value, the exemption scheme is elected consistently, and the domicile rule points to the state whose statutes are actually cited. |
| SOFA vs Schedules A/B | Property reported as transferred in the lookback should not still appear as owned, and lawsuits, insurance claims, or refunds disclosed on the SOFA usually imply an asset belonging on A/B. |
| Schedule G vs Schedule D | Leased vehicles and equipment belong on G with the lessor identified, not on D as a secured claim. |
| Schedule H vs D and E/F | Every codebtor ties to a scheduled debt, and every codebtor address appears on the matrix. |
| Matrix vs D, E/F, G, and H | Parity in both directions, plus notice parties that are not creditors themselves — collection firms, plaintiff’s counsel, servicers, and any address a creditor told the client to use. See the creditor matrix. |
The Statement of Financial Affairs deserves extra weight here, because it is the only place the case history lives — transfers, insider payments, prior addresses, closed accounts, business activity, lawsuits. It is also where an answer that is technically true and materially incomplete does the most damage, since the trustee reads it as a narrative rather than a form.
Pass 4 — Completeness
| Check | Why it fails review |
|---|---|
| No blank answers | A blank reads as an unanswered question, not a negative answer. Where the answer is none, the form should say so — the most common source of trustee follow-up on Form 107. |
| Every schedule present | Including the ones with nothing to report. A missing Schedule G or H is a deficiency, not an implied “not applicable.” |
| Declarations signed and dated | Form 106Dec, the debtor signature on Form 107, the petition signature, Forms 108 and 121, and every attorney block — dated on or before the filing date. |
| Continuation pages attached | Long creditor lists and asset schedules generate extra pages that drop out of the assembled PDF more often than anyone expects. |
| Local forms | Districts require their own attachments — matrix verifications, support obligation statements, local plan forms, wage orders. Check your district’s local rules; a national form set will not warn you. |
| Redaction | Full account numbers, full Social Security numbers outside Form 121, dates of birth, and minor children’s names do not belong on the public docket. |
Pass 5 — The filing package
| Item | Confirm before filing |
|---|---|
| Signatures | Captured in the form the district accepts — retained wet signature versus conformed /s/ under local ECF rules — with both debtors signing in a joint case. |
| Credit counseling certificates | One per debtor, from an agency approved for that district, for a briefing completed within the 180 days before filing. |
| Fee handling | Payment at filing, an installment application, or a Chapter 7 fee waiver application. Pull current amounts from uscourts.gov rather than a template. |
| Compensation disclosure | Form 2030 under Rule 2016(b), which many districts expect with the petition. |
| Matrix file | Correct format and encoding for the district’s upload, deduplicated, no truncated addresses. |
| Trustee package | Pay advices, tax returns, and bank statements routed as the district requires — often to the trustee directly rather than the docket. |
Who reviews
The person who entered the data cannot be the only person who reviews it. That is not a comment on skill; it is how proofreading works. The preparer reads what they intended to type, so the errors that survive their own review are precisely the errors that survive their own review. A second reader catches a materially different error population — in most small firms, the attorney takes Passes 1, 3, and 5 while a second paralegal takes Passes 2 and 4.
Two habits make this cheap. Time-box each pass, so the reviewer stays on one category instead of drifting into general reading. And record who completed each pass on the case file, which turns review from an intention into a step that either happened or did not. The recurring patterns worth watching for are catalogued in petition data entry errors.
Why the review desk beats the 341 table
An error caught before filing costs a few minutes. The same error caught at the meeting of creditors costs an amendment, an amendment fee in most districts, re-notice to affected creditors, sometimes a continued meeting, and the part that appears on no invoice — the client’s confidence and the firm’s standing with a trustee who will see its next fifty cases. An omission the trustee finds is also an omission on a document signed under penalty of perjury, which is a different order of problem than a typo. What trustees actually ask about is covered in 341 meeting preparation.
Reducing what review has to catch
The cheapest review is the one with less to find. Errors enter a petition at two points: the client answers something wrong or incompletely, and a preparer transcribes a right answer into the wrong field. Better intake forms address the first. Source-anchored data entry addresses the second — when a petition field traces back to the client’s own handwriting rather than to a memory of what was typed, verification becomes a glance instead of a re-interview, which is the design premise behind tools like Casewell. Either way Pass 2 shrinks from re-deriving numbers to spot-checking them, and review time moves to Pass 3, where the judgment lives.
How long should a full petition review take?
For a straightforward consumer case, roughly 45 to 75 minutes across the five passes, with Pass 3 taking the largest share. Business interests, recent transfers, or a non-filing spouse add time, almost entirely in cross-form consistency.
Can the same person do all five passes?
They can do the passes, but not on their own data entry. If the firm has one preparer, separate the work by time — review the next morning — and have the attorney independently take Passes 1, 3, and 5.
What is the single highest-yield check?
Matrix parity against Schedules D, E/F, G, and H. It is fast, it is mechanical, and an unlisted creditor is one of the few pre-filing errors that can affect how a debt is treated in a later dispute.
Should the client review the petition before filing?
Yes, and not as a formality. The client is the only person who knows whether a fact is missing entirely, which is a category no internal review can detect. Walk them through the SOFA questions and the asset schedules specifically.
What if an error is found after filing?
Amend promptly rather than waiting for the trustee to raise it. A voluntary amendment before the meeting is a routine correction; the same amendment after the trustee finds the problem is a credibility issue that follows the case.
This guide is general information for law-firm staff, not legal advice for any particular case.