$1.8M Debt Wiped Out to $107K?! | Chad Van Horn on Bankruptcy, Credit & Beating the System

All right, so why knows, we got Chad Van Horn back. Y'all refer to him as a— not only is he a lawyer, but Chad, they call you Chatty Zaddy.

I love it. I love— this is my favorite part. Of the day, the week, the month, whenever I get to meet with you and get these wonderful compliments from the winos.

Lord Jesus, what is your wife saying about all these names? Is she jealous?

Like, she, she loves it. She, you know, the way she looks at it is if I was ugly, they wouldn't be giving me these names.

So I'm just saying, shout out to your wife, because when they say, oh, your man looks like Brian McKnight, I'm like, okay. Not his character, but I'll take the look. So Brian McKnight's not an ugly guy. So yes, I love that. Okay, all right, cool. Chatty Zaddy. I ain't gonna call you that, that's inappropriate, but the winos have at it. So listen, we got a bomb-ass client testimonial that just came in. You just wiped off— and this is a client testimonial, her name is Yvonne T— and she says you wiped off $31,000 worth of debt under a Chapter 7 for her. Yeah, it was the best experience she ever had.

It's unbelievable. I think you're having an impact on people because she was crying tears of joy. She's saying bankruptcy is the best thing that she's ever done. She was calling her family, her friends, telling everybody about it. She was screaming from the rooftop because she had some medical debt, credit card debt, and when she got that discharge order, she said, wait, I'm debt-free. I can go out and live my life. And she wrote—

that just gave me chills.

Oh my gosh. I'm telling you the impact that you're having getting the word out that going through bankruptcy could be the best thing for you and change your life. Yvonne is such a sweetheart. She wrote the best review. She's already referred 4 clients, so she's really getting the message out there.

Shout out to that. And listen, I tell you, I heard y'all so busy up over there. You literally— what are you doing to support all this business? Are you hiring too?

So we, we've brought on 15 new employees in the last month, so we've been training like crazy. Uh, so 15 new employees, new attorneys. We're up to 14 attorneys.

Uh, damn, Chad, you coming for— you coming for the competitor's neck, ain't you? You not playing. Chad said bring them on, let's go.

Look, you know, I have great— I have great teammates. I have great partners like you that, uh, have really helped elevate the business and we're helping so many people. I mean, our, our business is up 60, 70% year over year. So it's, it's incredible growth. And, uh, because of the economy, because of the debt, we're only going to see more of this growth over the next few years.

Wow. Shout out to Yvonte, the Winos. Uh, just, just shout out to you guys. Just, you changed my life and I'm, I'm happy that you, I'm able to extend my platform to you so that people can experience the same feeling that I have, including a client of yours, uh, just yesterday, a Subchapter 5 case. Which was an impossible case, uh, that I had. Like, it was— I mean, it took almost, what, a year and a half to close mine. Um, you just closed one yesterday, okay? $1.8 million in unsecured debt cut down to a 10% repayment, $107,000. Now I'm kind of jealous, uh, Chad. I'm really jealous about this.

Well, this was an easy one compared to, compared to yours. And, and I have clients that come in all the time, they said on a scale of 1 to 10, or, and I call it the 1 to Tasha scale, where does this fall? So, uh, so yeah, this was, this was a relatively easy one. Obviously for every client that's going through it, it's extremely stressful. A small business owner that, that got wiped out during COVID uh, personally guaranteed all the loans, they were coming after us. His mom's home that his name was on, his car. They're coming after all of his assets. We were able to stop that from moving forward, get him reorganized. And this one lasted about 7 months, so this one moved pretty quickly, which we always like to do that because that keeps all the admin fees, attorney's fees.

Of course. Yeah, yeah, yep.

And, uh, he was extremely happy, uh, to have this behind him. And the good thing about a Sub 5 case that's consensual is Once you close it, it's done. You can rebuild your credit and, uh, and move on.

I love it, I love it. I'm really jealous of this. Shout out to the, the person that did this. Of course, we're keeping their identity hidden, whatever, but shout out to them. They're only paying $107,000 back of the $1 million, $1.1 million, uh, that, that was unsecured, and also an IRS priority claim of $142 a month for 48 months. And then you are saving them with this Subchapter 5 bankruptcy as a small business owner, okay? $930,000.

And, and, and most importantly, he— his business is operating, it's making money, he's able to keep his employees.

Wait a minute, he still got his business?

Still got his business. We reorganized that too.

You're gonna have them hunt you down, I promise you. You're gonna have them come hunt you down. Wow. Oh my gosh.

There are always options, Tasha K. You know this. You just gotta go out there and seek the options.

Listen, I'm not even gonna lie, like, you made me a better business owner. Like, you took me from small business to— I'm not even gonna cap— media mogul. Like, just the different funnels and things like that. Like, Chad, like, it was like something— you woke something up in me when you was like, I need this kind of money, and you need to go get it now. And although it was a struggle to get there, I was just like, the fact that we brought it to the closing table, I was just like, I needed this. I needed this. It was like you took the rug, the comfort zone, took the covers off the bed, everything, made the room ice cold for me to feel it. And I do not regret anything. So although I'm jealous of this, but I'm actually happy that people have access to people like you because they don't have to live in agony or fear or pain or stress or anything anymore.

Absolutely. And life's too short to deal with that, right? So let's, let's move on. Let's put the plan together. And so, so many clients, when they come in and see me, are beaten down because they don't have hope. They think that even if I make a little bit of money, it's not going to make a difference because I owe millions of dollars. Once we start putting that plan together and those millions become a number that in your mind you can actually start putting that together, you know what, if I move this, if I do that, you know, maybe I can get to $10,000 a month, maybe I get to $15,000 a month. Those are real numbers that if you get motivated, you can get after it. But when you just have $1 million sitting on your back or $2 million or $10 million, whatever it is, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning because it feels like you're not making a difference, man.

It's just, it's like once you discover that there's an actual solution and like I said, mine was kind of one of those impossible cases. But, you know, of course I believe in God and things like that. And I just had a lot of faith on my side and I, I kept straight. And what I, like I said, I stress this so much is what I love about your law firm is that You guys don't get in the mud with people. You don't get in the mud with creditors. You don't get in— you don't get like— you, you will literally— you'll have a creditor or a lawyer yelling in your face and you'll just be like, okay, well, let's just talk about the numbers. Like, I saw you do that. I saw you do that.

Yeah, you know, I'm not one of those— I'm not one of those emotional people. Like, if we're gonna fight, let's fight. Let's not talk about fighting. And I know that we're not getting into fistfights as lawyers, or we shouldn't be. At the end of the day, it's, it's let's get to the numbers. Let's figure it out. You know, we're supposed to take the emotion out of it, especially when there's emotional parties or, you know, there's always a backstory, but we're supposed to take the emotion out of it. Let's get to the business deal that's going to get done and then let's move forward. And I think my team and I have done a pretty good job of doing that over the years.

Oh, pretty good job. Excellent job, y'all. The customer service is just number one down there at the Van Horn Law Firm. For real. Seriously. Okay. So consumer bankruptcy filings have soared. Word. Okay. According to, uh, there's a 10% rise in just the first half of 2025. Okay. And so individual bankruptcies are up sharply. June 2025 saw a 16% increase over the previous year and a 23% jump in Chapter 7s. Why is that, Chad? What the hell is going on?

So what I've seen before, and I'm seeing it again, First, it's the businesses that start to collapse, right? Unfortunately, the businesses go under and then the employees, uh, lose their job. And right now the job market is really, really tight. So even for the businesses that aren't laying off people, they're not hiring at the same rate because of artificial intelligence. They're trying to move more money to their bottom line. So as people lose jobs, they're not finding positions. And I'm finding people that are applying for jobs here as legal assistants where they were making $100,000 a year and we're advertising $15 to $25 an hour, um, just because—

I mean, when you got to work, you got to work. Yep.

And, and that's exactly it. So they're like, look, I just want to get my foot in the door. I know I'm talented, I know I can work, and let me get in as a legal assistant and I'll work my way up. Because their job just— it went from making good, really good money to being nonexistent.

I mean, it's just sad to say, and I get this whole AI thing, and I think AI is making jobs easier. But I tell people all the time, I'm like, listen, there's this new trend, right? This new rise. And I feel that yes, people are going to use it. But at the end of the day, it's still going to take a human to power through AI. Because once people start getting used to it, and they start to see the authentic, like the inauthenticity behind AI, people are are going to want bodies back again, selling and doing a lot of things that they were doing before. Because, you know, it's just, it's just not the same. And we are a, we are people that started off with bartering before money even came into play, and things like that, like you do something for me, I do something for you. And so computers can't always give you that all the time. And so I'm telling people now, even though, you know, there's like a storm, there's going to be an afterstorm. And so you just got to kind of maneuver and figure out how you're going to exist with with using these machines, but I just don't think it's the end of the world. But I'm glad that they can find people, find lawyers such as yourself and firms such as yourself to be able to start over and wipe out all that debt and start fresh, just like, um, how this new technology is coming out here and, and starting fresh in companies and stuff like that.

So yeah, you know, they're, they're saying AI is coming for everybody's job, but I, I tend to agree with you. I know that AI wouldn't even want to do my job some of the time and definitely couldn't be creative enough to come up with the different arguments that we can make in front of judges. Because again, there's a human that's going to judge us at the end of the day. And I know this judge because I'm in front of them all the time. I know opposing counsel. I know the different avenues that we can go down to get a deal done or approved that AI is just going to give you a high-level answer of, this is what it says in books, websites, blogs, and it's really good at going out there and doing those type of task research. But when it comes to getting things done in those personal relationships, AI certainly isn't there yet, and I don't think it's going to go there.

I just don't think it's always going to need a human to power it, and it lacks something that we as humans have, which is survival tactics, because it can't tell you how to survive in the midst of something that you learn while going through it. And two, intuition. It doesn't have intuition. And we as humans have that. So, but I do feel like there needs to be, especially in the universities, there needs to be a kind of a restructure of how they're going about teaching jobs so that people can integrate AI, and it can make it effective for everyone. So, but let me, let me ask you this. Sheck has a topic request. He actually, he actually is sort of in competition with you, my husband. Oh, two things. He was dancing the other day and I was like, why are you dancing? Why are you doing the Chris Brown challenge? What is going on? Because, you know, Chris Brown got that, you feel me? Well, you know, and I'm like, what are you doing, Shaq? And he's like— and then he turned around and showed me his credit score. And I looked at it and Chad— I kid you not, his credit score was like a 756. He was like, what did Chad say his score was? I'm coming for him.

Yeah, 756 is great. That's really great. It's also cute compared to my 850. So I finally, I finally hit 850. It's been a lifelong goal. So you're trying to hit the 900 range? 850 That was definitely on my bucket list. I felt like my career is giving out financial advice. So I feel like, I feel like I had to take my own and show people the path. So yes, I hit 850.

As a lawyer that's doing this, that's telling people you can start over, you can rebuild your credit, you can get out of debt, and you can still have a score of 850. Like my husband, he's filed bankruptcy before, and to see his score back at like a 756, He's bought a house, everything. Like, that's insane. But you do got to lead by example. You can't be telling, you know, Chad.

Of course, of course. And but things happen to us as well. I've represented bankruptcy attorneys, credit repair attorneys, and whatnot. Things happen. Um, but I'm gonna work with Shaq. We're gonna get him to 850 too, and then we're gonna have a big— we're gonna have 850 party.

Okay, all right, that's like— wow, that's like Black Amex Club. So, um, Trump He wants you to talk about— I— he wants you to talk about Trump. Do you know how many bankruptcies that Trump has filed as our president?

So he hasn't filed personal bankruptcy. He's only filed— he's only filed for corporations, and I believe it's been about 7 of them.

Damn.

Yeah, 7 of them in a couple casinos, which, you know, casinos never file bankruptcy. So, so there's definitely something going down with those.

And so that's kind of bad if a casino comes through and files bankruptcy.

Yeah, there was a move and it's been called a couple different things, but basically you get, you get a bunch of investors that come in and secured creditors that come into a company, and then basically you take all the assets out of the company and then you file Chapter 11 for that company. And I guess there's legal ways to do that.

It kind of seems like fraud to me, but if you have really good lawyers and enough money behind it I guess, uh, we're not trying to have the Trump administration come after us during a stipple because, you know, Trump is petty. He is really petty.

Oh my God, he's going after Latasha James now. You see that?

Yeah, I saw that, and I was just like, I don't know why they just won't leave him alone. Just leave him alone. Let him do his little term, get out, and then we'll be out from under this. Like, for real, it's not going to last that long.

Um, yeah, people, people have to be careful because especially, you know, this mortgage fraud investigation, and it's going on with a couple different people— Lisa Cook too, out of Georgia. If you fill out something wrong on a, on a federal form or federal application to— and, and for this instance, they said it's going to be their homestead or where they live and primary residence, and it wasn't, you get a lower interest rate because of that. And technically, that's mortgage fraud. And a lot of the mortgage brokers just fill out the documents and you sign without looking at a lot of it. But if you get into a political dispute, I mean, they're going to look under every rock to get you.

So I was just trying to say that, like, I'm seeing a lot of people aspire to want to join politics behind this. And I'm like, you know, it's a dirty game. And being that they have advantage, they have unlimited funds, they know the law, they make the laws, they could put you in jail under a new law. And it's like, let them people serve their term and just get the hell out, you know, and, and help your community another way. But, um, yeah, that was— it's a lot going on. But, um, last question I want to ask you. There is a fellow, uh, blogger that we know that is currently, uh, in a case with, uh, Megan Thee Stallion. And I don't understand what they told me the other day, that my name is all through that case. And I was like, I don't understand, I haven't been served one document about this case. Moving on. But, um, she doesn't have any money, the blogger, and she's fighting this case, um, using like public funds and things like that from GoFundMes and stuff. And she's unable to kind of meet certain deadlines because, you know, she's had to change lawyers. Could she bankrupt the case in the middle and stop the whole case before it even—

I always recommend that, Tasha K. People always come to me so late, like all the appeals have been done, everything's been done. And everybody's upset, and then they say, Chad, can you clean this up for me?

Putting on my fake Guccis. Go ahead.

If you come to me early, that case can stop and we can start the reorganization process early, or we can make it go away early. And then if they want to come in and try to make it non-dischargeable, we have arguments that we can make in the bankruptcy court. So you don't lose all your leverage, because if you wait till the case goes all the way through and you get a bad judgment against you, then I am stuck with that judgment because I can't overturn it. An appellate court can, the bankruptcy court can't go behind it. So we are stuck with potentially a bad judgment. So if you're in litigation and it's not going your way and you can't afford the fight, you need to talk to a bankruptcy attorney before the judgment's entered and give us a little more ammunition that we can work with. Because after it's already entered, whatever's in that black and white order, we're stuck with Even if, even if we completely disagree with the facts.

Because in my case, right, had I would have had this knowledge, okay, do you know, Chad, I would have been all up and through your office before it even would have gotten to trial? Yeah. Do you think I would have wanted to pay an attorney $20,000, $30,000 a month? It's a money funnel, an endless wormhole. And so are the documents. So is the stress. I would have been all up and through there. And I'm telling you, I'm having— I'm letting these bloggers know, you guys, if they sue you, let them sue. You walk your ass right into your office and let you bankrupt that shit right before they ask. What they gonna do?

It's, it's 100% correct. And sometimes, and I've had this happen where we didn't even have to file the bankruptcy because I made a phone call to plaintiff's counsel. I said, hey, we're filing bankruptcy, uh, here, here's our final and best offer to be done with this. And they know that we're not joking around, we're going to file. And they'll talk to bankruptcy counsel on their side and say, yeah, you're really not going to get anything, you should take this offer. So sometimes it really sobers up both sides where, you know, you don't necessarily want to go into bankruptcy, you just want to finish the litigation. And the other side, generally speaking, they want some sort of result, money or whatever it might be. So if we can come to that without filing bankruptcy, great. But if we could stop the litigation with the bankruptcy, that works as well.

So because it happened with one of my cases and I was just like, oh my God, like, I learned so much through this bankruptcy process, right? And I was being sued by the bishop. And remember that came in while I was in bankruptcy, but it was filed before the bankruptcy. And so he tried to enter the bankruptcy saying that he wanted like $300 million. And you politely wrote at the bottom under unsecured creditors, zero.

Yep.

Yes, that was, that was, that was some Chatty Zaddy type shit. Like, it was like zero, take it or leave it.

That shit, you take away all my secrets, Tasha K. Come on, come on.

I never tell nobody this story. That shit is funny.

They caught me on a good day. They caught me on a good day. And that's the thing is the cause of action has to arise prior to the case. And in this case, obviously the lawsuit was filed and they wanted to move forward with it, but obviously the bankruptcy stay said we're not doing that. And then we took care of that claim.

I love it. I sure love it. It was amazing. One of the best chess moves ever. It was funny because he was like, I'm suing you, but $300 million. It was like, watch this, reverse Uno. So I'm telling you, any blogger out there right now, because you know all these celebrities is getting sue happy, if they sue you, it's okay. There's Chad. Talk to him. He has an office in South Florida. He can, he can cover the state of Florida. He can cover the state of Pennsylvania. He just opened up an office in Pittsburgh. Congratulations on that.

Hi, my name is Anna. My name is Sabine. My name is Archilles Carter. My name is Doug.

What has stood out to me in this trip is the kindness of the people here.

Walking on the roads, everyone's saying hello. You go to the store, everyone's talking to each other in the store. And there's a lot of things to do here. Pittsburgh's such a local city, not a lot of chains. There's a lot of shops, a lot of really good restaurants. And even the chains that are here started here and then expanded. I'm definitely coming back to see Mount Washington. Those views, spectacular. I'm super proud to help the Van Horn family grow here. You know, with Chad being a Pittsburgh native, I think it's going to be huge and super excited to be a part of it.

Um, but yeah, he can, he can, he can take it from there.

Yeah, and I've been answering a lot of questions for, uh, for the winos that have been emailing me and, and guiding them to people in their state. And there's some that they really want me, so I'm getting licensed in the, in those states as well. So, uh, Yeah, so I could go in pro hac vice, or I can, or I can take the exam and get into the federal courts. So, so yeah, so I have a case in Alaska right now. Like, I'm, I'm nationwide. I'm gonna go worldwide one day.

Damn, damn, that's, that's amazing. I listen, and I'm full speed ahead behind you, helping you to build this thing. I want everybody to know you and how many lives that you've changed, including mine and my family's. And Chad, I love you for that, man. Put on my fake Guccis. I'm proud to wear my fake Gucci, but I ain't broke.

It's a pleasure to be able to serve and work with people like you, and it really makes me feel good when, when I see people take advantage of the opportunity and, and run with it. And that's certainly what you've done. I ran into a friend at dinner the other night, and he was talking— he was talking about the best thing he ever did was file bankruptcy. And now he is crushing it. He was talking about this yacht that he bought. So maybe I'll be invited onto a yacht soon, but he is absolutely killing it. So that's the best thing I could see is, like, don't waste the second opportunity. Don't waste the third opportunity. Take advantage of it. Move forward. Build that 850 credit score. Go get your yacht, whatever you want to do.

All right, listen, don't stay stuck in that debt. Don't be stressed out. Don't be worried about the medical bills. Don't be worried about them lawsuits and things like that. Just call Chad. Okay. Um, he has an office in, uh, South Florida. You could go ahead and, uh, we'll put the number here, okay? Van Horn Law Group. And you can ask for Chad personally, or one of his, uh, attorneys that works under him, uh, will help you as well too. And Chad, anything else you want to add before we wrap this up?

Uh, we need to do this more. I love this. This is so much fun, Tasha.

But you was on vacation, so I mean, we could have did this last week, but you was laid up somewhere.

I actually have a tan. Look, I actually have a tan.

I know, I know. I thought you was a black man for a second there. What a Jheri curl.

All right, yeah, definitely, definitely have the winos reach out. Van Horn Law Group, I'm available. We're here 6 days a week, we're working hard for you. So if you're in debt, we got you.

All right, say that number one time, any number. I know you got like 900 numbers.

954-637-00 000.

All right, there it is. All right, Chad Van Horn, AKA Chatty Zaddy, um, and we're out. We'll see you next week. Okay, thanks, folks. All right, bye.

Stay right here.