Farm bankruptcy 1

I was drinking beers with attorney Patrick Geile at a pickleball tournament when he mentioned that he specialized in agricultural bankruptcy. I said, what?

I'll give you a typical chronology is I have a person call me and they're a stressed farmer. So whether that's a dairymen or a cattleman or somebody that's growing beans or corn or mint or whatever it is, and typically they are behind on a operating line or property line with their primary commercial lender. And that's typically where we start. Really, one of the first things I analyze is, boy, should this person be in bankruptcy? Should we even be talking about bankruptcy? I think some of the proactive clients are really not in too much hot water yet. And then some really are. And some say I've got a foreclosure that's going to happen next week. And we need to do some form of emergency bankruptcy filing. More often than not, though, there's a few months lead on some event that we need to file a bankruptcy before that event. A lot of times what I do is I tell my folks to really start getting me information. Profit and loss statements, balance sheets. And really in agriculture, the most important thing is a budget, at least a 12 month budget, 24 months is more helpful because you get through two growing seasons.