Bankruptcy software built for the way modern firms work.

Petition Engine takes a Chapter 7 case from intake to discharge. The questionnaire and documents come in, the schedules, means test and exemptions get built, and Preflight checks the whole file before a petition can be filed.

Built for consumer Chapter 7 practices. Southern District of California first, other districts as firms come on.

Preflight · Golden, Alex · Chapter 7 · S.D. Cal.check 1 of 12
Means-test window Mar 2026 to Aug 2026 for a Sep 15 filing
One CMI record per employer, six months each, both methods reconcile
No ownership deduction on the free-and-clear 2015 Civic (Ransom)
Joint case: one set of exemption caps, not two
Schedule J has no blank lines; three IRS standards substituted
Residential lease kept off Schedule G
SOFA 16 equals Form 2030 fees received
Every creditor has a notice address and account last four
Credit counseling certificates dated within 180 days
Standards window reviewed by an attorney
Social Security numbers present only in the attorney vault
Attorney review and signatures
Hold. 1 flag, 1 hold. The petition stays a draft.
“We moved from Best Case to Petition Engine.”

That sentence should sound ordinary in your office. So the screens are laid out the way your paralegals already know them, with the same buttons in the same places, and your existing cases import in one step.

The habits we kept on purpose

  • Name-first creditor entry with the common creditor list
  • One CMI detail record per income source, six months each
  • Save, Save & Add Another, Close, on the same keys
  • Forms and Schedules as the hub of every case
  • A status box on the means test that tells you where you stand

One place for the whole case.

Eight parts, named for what they do. Every part writes to the same case, so nothing is typed twice.

IntakePetition Engine Intake
The questionnaire, the 341 questionnaire and the retainer, captured once and mapped to the schedules.
CasesPetition Engine Cases
Every form and schedule in the order the petition is filed, with a version on every save and a full audit trail.
DocumentsPetition Engine Documents
Paystubs, returns, statements and credit reports, read by machine, checked against the file, and kept with the case.
FilingPetition Engine Filing
Official forms filled from the case, a watermarked draft set for review and a final set only after Preflight clears.
NoticesPetition Engine Notices
The creditor matrix, notice addresses and the parties who must be told, built from the creditors you entered.
AIPetition Engine AI
Reads the documents, drafts the schedules and writes the closeout memo under your firm’s own rules. It proposes; an attorney decides.
PreflightPetition Engine Preflight
The checks a supervising attorney would run, applied to every file, every time, before it can be filed.
Client PortalPetition Engine Client Portal
A private link where clients upload what is missing and see exactly what is still needed.

Preflight

Nothing files until the file is right.

Preflight is not a spell-checker. It knows the rules a supervising attorney would apply, from Ransom to the one-set rule for joint debtors, and it holds the petition when one is broken.

Schedules

  • Schedule I mirrors the means-test income unless a job changed
  • Schedule J has no blank lines; omitted expenses get the IRS standard, marked as such
  • Every asset carries a value; every claim carries a statute and a cap
  • The residential lease stays off Schedule G

Means test

  • The six-month window is derived from the expected filing date
  • Both income methods are computed and reconciled
  • Social Security and VA disability are excluded from CMI and still disclosed
  • No ownership deduction on a car with no loan

Exemptions

  • Joint debtors get one set of caps
  • Exempt plus exposed always equals the total scheduled
  • Both California systems are compared on every file
  • Every dollar figure comes from a reviewed standards window

Documents and creditors

  • Tier 1 documents present before the file is typed
  • Every creditor has a notice address and an account last four
  • Collection agencies are notice parties, never a second debt
  • SOFA 16 equals the Form 2030 fee received

Filing

  • Credit counseling within 180 days
  • Attorney review recorded before a final set exists
  • Social Security numbers only on Form 121, only from the attorney vault
  • Final forms flattened and verified by re-reading them

Every check names the rule it applies and the numbers it used, so a reviewer can see why the file was held and fix the cause, not the symptom.

How the AI is used, plainly

Documents are read by machine. Before any model sees a page, Social Security numbers, account numbers and card numbers are removed. An inexpensive model pulls out the numbers; one careful pass reads everything together, notices the contradictions, and drafts the schedules and the memo.

Every dollar figure is then recomputed by deterministic engines, and the result is a draft. An attorney reviews it. The software never files anything.

Where it runs

In the browser, or as a desktop app for the office that shares one case file across every workstation. Each firm has its own isolated tenant, encrypted at the field level, with the attorney vault holding the identifiers that never belong in a schedule.

Your firm’s own rules, the ones you have written down over years of filings, are the rules the software applies.

Request access.

Tell us about the practice. We bring firms on one at a time, import the open cases from your current software, and stay on the phone through the first filing.

Prefer email? hello@petitionengine.com

No card, no trial clock. We reply personally.