Name: When Your Client Is Drowning: Trauma-Informed Communication in Bankruptcy Practice
Start: 2026-09-03T14:15:00-0500
End: 2026-09-03T15:15:00-0500

When Your Client Is Drowning: Trauma-Informed Communication in Bankruptcy Practice

Thursday September 3, 2026 2:15pm - 3:15pm CDT

Classroom 202

Imagine drowning financially for two years. You've depleted your savings, destroyed your credit, and broken your body trying to stay afloat. You finally call an attorney—your last hope—but you're terrified they'll judge you as a failure. So you minimize the debt, you "forget" to mention the inheritance, you tell them what you think they want to hear. That's your client. They desperately need help, but shame won't let them ask for it honestly. They're not just seeking legal help—they're looking for someone who won't judge them, who will hear them, who can pull them to safety. But their trauma is so profound they can't tell you what you need to know to actually help them.

Research confirms this: over 60% of bankruptcy filers experience significant shame, and most struggle for 2+ years before seeking help. That trauma creates real barriers—clients minimize debts, omit assets, avoid difficult topics, and provide incomplete information. The result? Bad petitions, trustee problems, and malpractice exposure.

This session teaches you to recognize trauma responses in real time (defensive anger, avoidance, decision paralysis, people-pleasing), use specific language that builds trust instead of triggering shame, read verbal and non-verbal cues that signal hidden information, and deploy strategic questioning that surfaces critical facts your clients are terrified to disclose.

Through interactive polling and real case examples—medical debt, predatory lending, hidden assets—you'll learn immediately applicable communication techniques. The presenters practice bankruptcy and other areas of consumer law; one is a bankruptcy attorney with a master's degree in psychology. While the session focuses on bankruptcy practice, these trauma-informed techniques apply across legal aid practice with financially distressed clients.

You can't help clients who won't tell you the truth. This session shows you how to create the safety they need to tell you everything.

Speakers

Amy Allen

Supervising Attorney, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas

Amy Allen has been licensed since 1991 and is the Supervising Attorney for Housing, Consumer, and Public Benefits at the Fort Worth Office of Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. She is a proud graduate of LSU and Bates School of Law at the University of Houston. Her primary areas of practice... Read More →

Samantha Kehl

Staff Attorney, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas

Samantha Kehl: Legal Aid Attorney by Day, Chaos Wrangler by Night

Samantha Kehl has been practicing bankruptcy law since 2008, and currently serves as Staff Attorney and Bankruptcy Practice Team Leader at Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas (LANWT), where she also works on a veterans grant helping veterans and their families. When she's not in court untangling... Read More →

Thursday September 3, 2026 2:15pm - 3:15pm CDT
Classroom 202

Multidisciplinary/ Miscellaneous

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2026 Poverty Law Conference

Amy Allen

Samantha Kehl

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2026 Poverty Law Conference

Amy Allen

Samantha Kehl

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