Bankruptcy case documents are a matter of public record and can be accessed in the Clerk's Office during regular business hours or 24 hours a day through Internet access to PACER. This site is maintained by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts on behalf of the Federal Judiciary and provides information from and about the U. S. Judiciary.
Each of the 94 federal judicial districts deals with bankruptcy matters, and in nearly every district, bankruptcy cases are filed with the bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy laws help people who can no longer pay their creditors to start from scratch by liquidating their assets to pay off their debts or creating a payment plan. It is unlikely that an individual's personal bankruptcy will appear in the newspaper, but commercial bankruptcies may be more newsworthy and interesting to see since they will affect a larger part of the community. All documents filed in bankruptcy proceedings are available as a public record. You can use the Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) service to search for bankruptcy records online.
All you need is an account to search for and locate bankruptcy court cases. PACER charges a fee for each page viewed with the system. For example, when private equity firm Versa bought Wet Seal, its difficulties caused a wave of bankruptcies for other adolescent clothing chains based in malls. The pace of retail bankruptcies peaked last year, after years of high demands that culminated in a major shake-up in the industry.
