You may never have thought of yourself as needing to learn bankruptcy law, but if you work on any issue that involves making someone do something they don’t want to do or pay money they don’t want to pay, you need to know about bankruptcy law. This includes:

• Enforcing consumer or environmental protection laws.
• Collecting taxes.
• Enforcing child support payments.
• Working on state contracts.
• Prosecuting people who collect benefits they’re not entitled to.

There are a lot of individuals out there that think that filing bankruptcy is a way to avoid those obligations and, if you are to be an effective representative of the state and the order and judgments it issues, you’ll need to know just how far that bankruptcy relief extends. The good news is that there are a lot of ways the bankruptcy laws do accommodate and give priority to governmental enforcers but there are also a lot of limits and controls on what the government can do while it is enforcing its rights. This series provides an introduction and overview of bankruptcy law for all governmental counsel.