Who we are. The New York City Bankruptcy Assistance Project (NYCBAP) is part of Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) fights poverty and seeks justice for low-income New Yorkers. For more than 40 years, we have challenged systemic injustice and helped clients meet basic needs for housing, access to high-quality education, health care, family stability, and income and economic security. LSNYC is the largest civil legal services provider in the country, with deep roots in all of the communities we serve. Our neighborhood-based offices and outreach sites across all five boroughs help more than 70,000 New Yorkers annually. LSNYC leverages its limited resources with a range of pro bono partnerships across all of our practice areas. 

NYBAP provides free bankruptcy assistance to low-income residents of New York city who are considering bankruptcy. We assist people through weekly "bankruptcy workshops," in which debtors meet with volunteer attorneys and law students to learn about and be assessed for bankruptcy. Where appropriate, we assist debtors in preparing and filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy petitions. Depending on our assessment at the workshop, the volunteer gives advice or prepares a bankruptcy petition for the debtor, which we file pro se--that is, the debtor represents themselves once the case is filed. The attorney advises the debtor on how to represent themselves in meetings and contacts with creditors and with the bankruptcy trustee.

In addition, NYC BAP finds pro bono attorneys for self-represented parties in bankruptcy court litigation. These cases usually come to us from the Courts, and they usually involve representing litigants in matters such as student loan discharge or non-dischargeability cases. The volunteers here are always attorneys, and their work is not supervised by NYC BAP.