501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 41-5159631) publishing 49,000+ pages of free bankruptcy research across 210+ publication domains in 6 languages (English, Spanish, German, Polish, French, Italian). Volunteer-built. Federal Rules Committee accepted (26-BK-3, 26-BK-5). Media inquiries answered within 24 hours.
The Open Bankruptcy Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that builds free, open-source tools for bankruptcy court transparency. It screens the Federal Judicial Center's database of 8 million cases for statutory compliance failures and publishes free educational resources across 210+ domains.
Journalists, editors, and producers covering bankruptcy law, consumer protection, or federal court reform are welcome to contact us for data, sourcing, or interviews. We respond to all press inquiries within 24 hours.
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The Open Bankruptcy Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that builds free, open-source tools for bankruptcy court transparency. We analyze the Federal Judicial Center's Integrated Database, which contains filing-level records for nearly 5 million federal bankruptcy cases spanning 2008 through 2025 across all 94 federal judicial districts.
Our research identified 392,412 repeat filers whose prior filing histories were never systematically screened for statutory discharge bars under Sections 1328(f), 727(a)(8), and 109(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. This work led directly to Suggestion 26-BK-3, which was submitted to the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules in March 2026 (docketed and cited in the Committee's April 2026 agenda book) and proposes automated eligibility screening at the point of case filing. A separate suggestion, 26-BK-5, addressing Rule 9037 SSN-exposure remediation in Forms 121 and 309E1, was submitted in April 2026.
The project operates a network of 210+ free educational domains covering major bankruptcy statutes, with bilingual plain-language guides available at no cost. The combined indexing layer covers 8 million federal bankruptcy cases (FJC Integrated Database), 11.5 million PPP loan records, and 3.7 million EIDL records — cross-searchable by debtor or borrower name. All tools are open source and published on GitHub. We accept no attorney referral fees, run no advertising, and collect no personal data from visitors. The Internal Revenue Service recognized OBP as a 501(c)(3) public charity by determination letter dated April 6, 2026 (EIN 41-5159631; public charity classification 170(b)(1)(A)(vi)).
The following topics may be useful starting points for reporting on bankruptcy court transparency and consumer protection issues.
The Screening Gap. Federal bankruptcy courts have no automated mechanism to verify whether a debtor is eligible for a discharge before their case proceeds to completion. Our analysis of 8 million cases found that hundreds of thousands of filings with potential statutory bars were never flagged. This gap affects debtors (who may invest years in a plan that cannot end in discharge), creditors (who participate in plans with no legal endpoint), and courts (which allocate resources to cases that should have been screened at intake).
Attorney Performance Variation. Chapter 13 dismissal rates vary from under 20% to over 70% across attorneys handling comparable caseloads in the same district. These patterns persist across years and are publicly measurable through the FJC dataset, yet no federal system surfaces this information for consumers choosing a bankruptcy attorney.
Federal Rules Reform. Suggestion 26-BK-3, docketed by the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules in March 2026 and cited in its April 2026 agenda book, proposes that courts implement automated discharge bar screening. It is the first public suggestion to the Advisory Committee that is backed by a complete open-source screening tool and a national dataset analysis.
AI Hallucination in Legal Filings. The OBP AI Sanctions Tracker (JSON / CSV dataset, CC BY 4.0) catalogs court orders sanctioning attorneys for filing AI-generated briefs containing fabricated case citations. The doctrine descends from Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023, Castel J.) and the Second Circuit's Park v. Kim, 91 F.4th 610 (2024). Reportable angles: the verification-responsibility standard, the federal-judiciary's response to AI in attorney filings, and the asymmetry between sophisticated firms with verification workflows versus solo and small-firm attorneys without them.
SSN Exposure in Standard Bankruptcy Forms. Suggestion 26-BK-5, submitted in April 2026, addresses Rule 9037 SSN-exposure remediation in Forms 121 and 309E1. Reportable angle: how the redaction obligation is structured, what the empirical gap looks like across districts, and what enforcement looks like when violations are documented.
The Open Bankruptcy Project can provide data-backed sourcing, background, and on-the-record commentary on the following topics. We respond to all media requests within 24 hours and can turn around custom data pulls on tight deadlines.
Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 filing trends, dismissal rates, completion rates, and geographic variation across 94 federal districts. 8M-case dataset with 17 years of history.
High-volume, low-quality bankruptcy attorneys. Empirical identification methods, outcome disparities, and the consumer harm gap. District-level attorney performance data.
Automated compliance screening, PACER system limitations, open-source tools for court transparency, and the role of AI in federal court modernization.
The federal rulemaking process, Suggestions 26-BK-3 and 26-BK-5, discharge bar enforcement gaps, and how empirical research can drive procedural reform.
Serial bankruptcy filings, prior-filer discharge rates, systemic failure to screen for statutory eligibility bars, and the human cost of undetected re-filing.
Free legal technology, open-source court tools, PACER fee barriers, RECAP, the OBP national case index, and the role of nonprofits in making court data accessible to the public.
Three citable, machine-readable research artifacts. Each carries a suggested citation block and CC BY 4.0 license.
AI Sanctions Tracker
Federal & bankruptcy court orders on AI-hallucinated citations. Mata v. Avianca, Park v. Kim, Rule 11 / Rule 9011 doctrine. Free dataset (JSON / CSV).
Open tracker → Research BriefSuggestion 26-BK-3
Section 1328(f) discharge eligibility screening. Docketed by the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, March 2026. 8M cases analyzed; 392,412 prior filers identified.
Open brief → Research BriefSuggestion 26-BK-5
Rule 9037 / Forms 121 & 309E1 SSN exposure. Submitted as Suggestion 26-BK-5 to the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, April 2026.
Open brief →Media coverage and citations will be listed here as they are published. For inquiries, contact [email protected].
Brand assets and press materials are available upon request. Contact [email protected] with your deadline and we will prioritize accordingly.
Further Reading & Resources
Authority sources for deeper research on the Open Bankruptcy Project and 1328(f) research:
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