After filing for bankruptcy you will need to attend a creditors’ meeting. The creditor’s meeting, or 341 meeting (because it’s under Section 341 of the Bankruptcy Code) is a meeting with the Bankruptcy Trustee. The Bankruptcy Trustee is the representative for your creditors. However, creditors also have the right to attend this meeting as well. Despite this, creditors will rarely show up. The Trustee will ask you some different questions about your bankruptcy case. Don’t stress over the creditors’ meeting – your bankruptcy lawyer should help prepare you.

One of the frequent questions we get from our clients when discussing what happens at the creditors’ meeting is what type of clothing to wear. Do you need to “dress up” for your creditors’ meeting? No!

We always tell our clients to wear whatever they would wear on a typical day. There is no need to wear a suit to the creditors’ meeting just for the sake of getting dressed up. However, if you wear a suit to work every day then wearing a suit to your creditors’ meeting isn’t a problem either. Usually, the creditors’ meetings only last a couple of hours or so. Therefore, most people will go back to work after their creditors’ meeting. So just wear whatever you would typically wear to your place of employment.

With that said, we do encourage clients to obviously dress respectfully and appropriately. Men should make sure that they wear their pants around their waist, have sleeves on their shirts and they shouldn’t wear a hat or anything on their head unless they do so for spiritual purposes. Women will want to make sure that they don’t wear low-cut blouses or especially short skirts or dresses. It really comes down to using common sense. If you wouldn’t wear it to church or around family – don’t wear it to court or your creditors’ meeting.

Finally, we always encourage our bankruptcy clients to dress in layers. Anytime you have a large group of people in one place, the temperature will never be just right for everyone. If you dress in layers you can easily add clothing if the room is cold or you can remove some of those layers if the room is warmer than your preference.

Again, there is no need to get dressed up for your creditors’ meeting. However, make sure you use common sense and dress in layers. Best of luck at your creditors’ meeting!