Bankruptcy Filings Are Rising. Five Years at Propel Have Taught Me What That Really Means.

7 minutes ago

4 min read

By Heather Gardner, Founder & CEO, Propel Bankruptcy Services

The latest bankruptcy numbers are drawing well-deserved notice. According to the U.S. Courts, 608,511 bankruptcy cases were filed in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, a 12.2% increase over the year before. Nonbusiness filings rose 12% to 581,570, and business filings climbed 16.9% to 26,941.

Figures like these measure demand. They cannot capture the evening a client spends gathering pay stubs after a long workday, or the moment a paralegal checks a petition one last time before it is filed.

I have spent much of my career in bankruptcy, working in the stretch between a person's decision to seek help and the moment their case is ready to move forward. This September also marks five years since I founded Propel, and reading the national figures now, I am reminded of the clearest lesson that entire career has taught me. When more people need bankruptcy counsel, the quality of the work behind each case matters more, not less.

A rising number, and the people inside it

The increase is significant, though it needs context. Filings bottomed out at 380,634 for the 12 months ending June 2022 and have climbed in every quarterly report since. Even at 608,511, they sit far below the nearly 1.6 million recorded at the September 2010 peak. Today's trend should be taken seriously without being cast as an unprecedented crisis.

The chapter breakdown is where our daily work lives. Chapter 7 filings grew to 382,161, up from 333,321 the year before, while Chapter 13 filings reached 215,490, up from 200,290. Every one of those Chapter 13 cases carries a repayment plan that will need active management for three to five years after the petition is filed.

For bankruptcy firms, rising filings translate into heavier intake and longer document checklists, along with more cases that need sustained follow-through after filing. They can also expose a staffing gap that was already there. A solo or small-firm attorney may need senior-level bankruptcy help without having enough predictable volume, or the budget, to justify a full-time hire.

That gap is what I saw when I founded Propel in 2021. I understood how much specialized work goes into a bankruptcy matter, and I knew talented paralegals could do that work from anywhere with the right systems behind them. My goal was to give firms reliable help when they needed it while opening meaningful remote careers to experienced legal professionals.

What we have built

Propel began with a practical idea: give bankruptcy attorneys access to experienced virtual support that fits the way their firms already operate. Five years later, we are a nationwide team serving licensed attorneys and law firms. In 2025 we worked with approximately 38 firms, and today our remote team includes 16 independent contractors alongside me.

The number of firms is only part of the story. I am proudest of the depth of work we have built around each one. Our team supports firms from the first client conversation and document request through petition preparation and filing, and we stay with each case afterward for post-petition monitoring and case management.

We have invested heavily in workflows and training, with review standards every contractor follows, because this work is never just a matter of moving information from one form to another. One missing tax return or an unreturned phone call can stall a case while someone who needs relief keeps waiting.

Building Propel has also meant learning to grow deliberately. We recruit people with genuine bankruptcy experience and teach them our systems, and they adapt to the procedures of each firm they support. Keeping communication consistent across a remote team is an ongoing discipline. Some days were hard, and more than a few ended with the same answer: fix the process and keep going. That belongs in the five-year story too.

Demand for our support has now brought us to capacity, so we have temporarily paused new client onboarding while we prepare to expand responsibly. I am grateful for that trust, and I feel its weight. Growing faster is never worth it if attorneys and their clients receive less attention as a result.

What firms need as filings rise

A growing caseload rarely strains a firm in just one place. The pressure shows up at intake, when calls pile up waiting to be returned, and again during document collection, when clients need patient guidance. It returns during drafting, when every detail has to be reconciled, and it lingers after filing, when trustee requests and notices keep arriving.

Firms preparing for more volume would do well to ask themselves a few concrete questions. Can clients count on clear, timely communication from engagement through discharge? Is there a sound process for collecting and reviewing documents before anyone starts drafting? Who owns each deadline, and who follows through once the petition is on file? Perhaps most important, does the team have enough experienced support to hold quality steady as volume shifts?

Better technology can help firms answer those questions, and so can flexible staffing. Neither replaces an attorney's judgment or the diligence of a knowledgeable legal team. The point is to give those professionals the time and structure to do their best work.

Five years ago I built a company around that belief, and the need for it feels clearer today than ever. As filings rise, I want Propel to remain a dependable part of the team behind the attorneys doing this work, and through them, behind the people trying to find their way forward.

Propel Bankruptcy Services provides virtual bankruptcy support to licensed attorneys and law firms nationwide.