U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Vermont

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Vermont is the bankruptcy unit of the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont. Vermont has a single federal judicial district, so one district court and one bankruptcy court serve the entire state. Appeals from this court go first to the district court and from there to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Those three facts place the court on the map of the federal system, and almost everything else about practice here follows from them.

The arrangement is not a Vermont invention. Congress lodged bankruptcy jurisdiction in the district courts through 28 U.S.C. § 1334, which grants original jurisdiction over cases under title 11 of the United States Code and over civil proceedings arising under title 11, arising in a title 11 case, or related to one. A companion statute, 28 U.S.C. § 157(a), permits each district court to refer that workload to the bankruptcy judges of the district, and every district has entered a standing order of reference. When a debtor files a petition in Vermont, the case therefore lands in the bankruptcy court automatically. No party needs to request the referral, and most never think about it again.

The referral is not absolute. Under 28 U.S.C. § 157(d), the district court may withdraw the reference for cause shown, and it must withdraw the reference when resolution of a proceeding requires substantial consideration of federal law outside the Bankruptcy Code. Withdrawal remains the exception rather than the rule. Still, the possibility is a useful reminder that a bankruptcy court exercises authority the district court has lent it.

Bankruptcy judges are judicial officers of the district court. The court of appeals for the circuit appoints them to fourteen-year terms under 28 U.S.C. § 152, and reappointment is common. They do not hold life tenure under Article III of the Constitution. That difference drives the most technical distinction a litigant will meet in any bankruptcy court: the line between core and non-core matters.

Core proceedings are the matters at the center of a bankruptcy case. The statute lists examples in 28 U.S.C. § 157(b): allowance or disallowance of claims, motions to terminate or modify the automatic stay, objections to discharge, confirmation of plans, and proceedings to recover preferences or fraudulent conveyances, among others. In core matters the bankruptcy court enters final judgment on its own authority, subject to ordinary appellate review.

Non-core matters sit at the edge of the case. The classic example is a state-law claim that exists independently of the bankruptcy, such as a contract dispute the estate inherits from the debtor. In a non-core matter the bankruptcy judge may not enter final judgment unless every party consents. Absent consent, the judge submits proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and the district court reviews the disputed portions de novo before entering judgment, as 28 U.S.C. § 157(c) directs.

The labels carry practical weight. A proceeding arises under the Code when the right asserted comes from a Code section, as a preference action does. It arises in the case when it could exist nowhere else, as an objection to a proof of claim does. It is related to the case when its outcome could conceivably affect the estate, which is how guarantee disputes and many ordinary state-law claims enter federal court. The looser the connection, the weaker the power of the bankruptcy court to finish the matter alone.

The Supreme Court has policed this boundary twice in ways that still shape motion practice. Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982), struck down an earlier grant of judicial power to bankruptcy judges and forced Congress to rebuild the system in its present form. Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011), later held that certain claims listed as core in the statute still require an Article III judge for final adjudication. Practitioners respond with consent statements in pleadings, careful jurisdictional allegations, and occasional motions to withdraw the reference. A litigant does not need to master the doctrine, but should expect counsel to address it in the first filings.

Jury trials add a further wrinkle. Under 28 U.S.C. § 157(e), a bankruptcy judge may conduct a jury trial only when the district court specially designates the judge to do so and all parties expressly consent. If a party with a jury right withholds consent, the matter becomes a strong candidate for withdrawal of the reference and trial before a district judge. Personal injury tort and wrongful death claims must be tried in the district court in any event, under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)(5).

For most participants the constitutional machinery stays in the background. The bankruptcy court manages its own docket, holds its own hearings, and issues the orders that decide ordinary cases: relief from stay, plan confirmation, claim allowance, discharge. The clerk maintains the file, documents arrive through the federal judiciary's electronic filing system, and most of the record is public, because bankruptcy dockets are court records like any other. Debtors appear with counsel or on their own, creditors appear through lawyers or by filing proofs of claim, and the trustee assigned to the case moves it forward between hearings.

It also helps to see the court against the national background. The federal system operates 90 bankruptcy courts, each applying the same Bankruptcy Code and the same Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. What varies is local texture: standing orders, chambers procedures, and the habits that grow up around a bench. In a single-district state the bankruptcy bar is compact, repeat players appear before the same judges, and practice tends to be direct in a way the largest bankruptcy courts cannot match. None of that relaxes the rules. It simply means the court expects lawyers to know them.

Structure explains who decides; it does not explain what is decided. The work of this bankruptcy court arrives through the chapters of the Bankruptcy Code, and each chapter sets its own path for a debtor and for the creditors watching the case. The sections that follow walk through those chapters, the litigation that erupts inside them, the appellate route out of the court, and finally the practical question of hiring counsel who knows this ground.

Chapter numbers are the vocabulary of the field, and the caseload statistics show how much they matter. In the twelve months ending March 31, 2025, debtors filed 529,080 bankruptcy petitions nationwide, a 13 percent increase over the prior year, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reported that 86 of the 90 bankruptcy courts saw filings rise in that period. The demand behind those numbers reaches every bankruptcy court in the country, one petition at a time, and each petition opens under a specific chapter that fixes its course.

Chapter 7 is the liquidation chapter and the most common consumer filing. A trustee appointed from the district's panel takes control of the debtor's nonexempt property, sells whatever has value, and distributes the proceeds according to the priority scheme in 11 U.S.C. § 726. In practice most consumer cases are no-asset cases: exemptions cover what the debtor owns, nothing is sold, and the bankruptcy court grants a discharge within a few months of filing. The discharge releases the debtor from personal liability on most unsecured debts, though the categories listed in 11 U.S.C. § 523 survive it, including most taxes, domestic support obligations, and student loans absent a separate showing.

Eligibility for chapter 7 runs through the means test of 11 U.S.C. § 707(b), which compares the debtor's income to state medians and screens for ability to repay. Every individual debtor must also complete a credit counseling briefing within the window set by 11 U.S.C. § 109(h) before filing. These gates matter because a case filed by an ineligible debtor invites dismissal or conversion, and the bankruptcy court applies them as written.

The chapter 7 timeline is compact. The petition triggers the automatic stay. Schedules and statements follow under penalty of perjury. The trustee convenes the meeting of creditors required by 11 U.S.C. § 341, where the debtor answers questions under oath. Creditors and the trustee then face a deadline, set by Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004 and 4007 at sixty days after the first date set for that meeting, to object to the discharge or to the dischargeability of particular debts. If no one objects, the discharge ordinarily enters soon after the deadline passes, and a no-asset case closes shortly after that.

Chapter 13 takes the opposite approach. Instead of surrendering nonexempt assets, an individual with regular income proposes a plan to pay creditors out of future earnings over three or five years, the periods fixed by 11 U.S.C. § 1322(d). The debtor keeps property, cures mortgage or vehicle arrears through the plan, and gains protection for co-signers under the co-debtor stay of 11 U.S.C. § 1301. A standing trustee collects the payments and distributes them. The bankruptcy court confirms the plan only if it satisfies 11 U.S.C. § 1325, including the requirement that unsecured creditors receive at least what a chapter 7 liquidation would have paid them.

Debtors choose chapter 13 for concrete reasons. It is the tool for stopping a foreclosure and catching up on a home loan, for paying nondischargeable taxes on a manageable schedule, and for debtors whose income fails the chapter 7 means test. The Code caps the amount of debt a chapter 13 debtor may carry, and the caps adjust periodically, so the current figures are a question for counsel at the first interview. Completing the plan earns a discharge. Cases that fail midway are dismissed or converted, and the choice between those outcomes is itself argued to the court.

Chapter 11 is the reorganization chapter. It is built for businesses that intend to keep operating, though individuals with debts beyond the chapter 13 caps use it as well. The debtor typically remains in possession of the business and exercises a trustee's powers under court supervision while proposing a plan that restructures its obligations. Creditors vote by class, disclosure requirements apply, and confirmation under 11 U.S.C. § 1129 demands feasibility and respect for the absolute priority rule. Subchapter V offers qualifying small business debtors a streamlined version with a facilitating trustee and simplified plan mechanics. Chapter 11 cases are a small fraction of any bankruptcy court's filings, yet they generate hearings and contested motions out of proportion to their number.

Chapter 12 serves family farmers and family fishermen. It borrows the plan structure of chapter 13 but adapts it to agricultural reality: seasonal income, high asset values, and debt loads that would break the consumer caps. Vermont's rural economy gives this chapter genuine local relevance, since a farm operation facing a bad season or a lost contract may need restructuring rather than liquidation. The eligibility definitions in 11 U.S.C. § 101 control who qualifies, and a trustee administers the confirmed plan.

Who files what, in practice? Consumers dominate the petition counts under chapters 7 and 13 across the country. Businesses appear under chapter 7 when they intend to close and under chapter 11 when they intend to survive. Farmers and fishermen use chapter 12, and municipalities have a chapter of their own, chapter 9, which is rare everywhere. Creditors can even start a case themselves: an involuntary petition under 11 U.S.C. § 303 asks the bankruptcy court to place an alleged debtor into chapter 7 or 11 when the statutory requirements are met, though involuntary filings are uncommon and carry sanctions when brought in bad faith.

Every chapter shares a common opening sequence in the bankruptcy court: petition, schedules, statement of financial affairs, the automatic stay, the meeting of creditors, and the setting of the deadlines that will govern everything afterward. The differences lie in what happens next and in who controls the estate while it happens. A chapter 7 debtor mostly waits while the trustee works. A chapter 13 or chapter 12 debtor performs a plan for years. A chapter 11 debtor in possession runs a business under a microscope.

Filing numbers describe volume, not difficulty. A no-asset chapter 7 can pass through the bankruptcy court with a single appearance, while a contested reorganization can occupy the docket for years. What turns a routine case into a hard one is rarely the chapter. It is litigation: a creditor who challenges the discharge, a trustee who wants money back, a lender who wants the stay lifted. Those fights have their own procedural forms, and they are the subject of the next section.

Bankruptcy is court supervision of a debtor-creditor relationship, and supervision breeds disputes. The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure sort those disputes into two procedural boxes. Contested matters, governed by Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9014, are motion-driven: a request for relief, a response, and an evidentiary hearing if the facts are disputed. Adversary proceedings, governed by Rule 7001, are full lawsuits inside the case, opened by a complaint, answered like any civil action, and carried through discovery to trial. Knowing which box a dispute belongs in is the first procedural question in any bankruptcy court fight.

Rule 7001 lists the disputes that require an adversary proceeding. The list includes actions to recover money or property for the estate, to determine the validity or extent of a lien, to object to or revoke a discharge, to determine the dischargeability of a particular debt, and to obtain an injunction. The Part VII rules then borrow most of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, so a lawyer who knows Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 motions or Rule 56 summary judgment will recognize the machinery. The difference is tempo. A bankruptcy court moves an adversary proceeding on a docket where the main case is waiting, and its schedules reflect that urgency.

The automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. § 362 is the pressure valve of the whole system, and stay litigation is the most common contested matter. The stay arises the moment a petition is filed, without any court order, and it halts collection lawsuits, foreclosures, repossessions, garnishments, and most other acts against the debtor or property of the estate. Exceptions in § 362(b) let criminal prosecutions, certain domestic support proceedings, and specified regulatory actions continue. Everything else stops until the bankruptcy court says otherwise.

Creditors respond with motions for relief from the stay under § 362(d). A secured lender argues cause, often the absence of adequate protection for its collateral, or argues that the debtor has no equity in the property and the property is unnecessary for an effective reorganization. The debtor or trustee answers, the bankruptcy court holds a prompt hearing because the statute imposes tight timing, and the outcome can shape the whole case. When the stay lifts on a home or a key business asset, a chapter 13 or chapter 11 case may lose its purpose overnight.

Violating the stay is its own hazard. An individual injured by a willful violation may recover damages under § 362(k), and the bankruptcy court can impose sanctions through its contempt power. Out-of-state creditors who continue collection calls or proceed with a scheduled sale after notice of the filing learn this rule quickly and expensively.

Avoidance litigation is where the estate goes on offense. The preference statute, 11 U.S.C. § 547, lets the trustee recover payments a debtor made on existing debts within ninety days before the petition, or within one year when the recipient was an insider, if the payment let that creditor do better than a chapter 7 distribution would have. The point is equality of distribution, not punishment. Defenses in § 547(c) protect payments made in the ordinary course of business, contemporaneous exchanges for new value, and creditors who extended fresh credit after the payment. Preference defense is a routine specialty of creditor-side counsel in every bankruptcy court.

Fraudulent transfer claims reach further back. Under 11 U.S.C. § 548, the trustee can avoid transfers made within two years of the petition, either with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors, or for less than reasonably equivalent value while the debtor was insolvent. Through 11 U.S.C. § 544(b), the trustee can also borrow state fraudulent conveyance law, which often carries a longer reach-back period. Recipients of gifts, undervalued asset sales, and payments on someone else's debts become defendants in adversary proceedings they never expected.

The claims process generates a steadier stream of disputes. Creditors assert their rights by filing proofs of claim under Rule 3001, and a properly filed claim is presumed valid until someone objects. Objections under 11 U.S.C. § 502 and Rule 3007 challenge amount, priority, security, or documentation. Most objections resolve by agreement or default. In the contested minority, the burden shifts back to the creditor to prove the claim, and the bankruptcy court decides after an evidentiary hearing if one is needed.

Discharge litigation is the highest-stakes corner of consumer practice. A creditor may sue under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a) to have a single debt declared nondischargeable on grounds such as fraud, willful and malicious injury, or embezzlement. The trustee, a creditor, or the United States Trustee may go further and object to the entire discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 727 for concealment of assets, false oaths, or destruction of records. These are adversary proceedings with real trials. Losing a § 727 action means leaving bankruptcy with every debt intact, the worst outcome the system offers a debtor.

Discovery inside a case deserves its own note. Beyond the borrowed civil rules, Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2004 authorizes broad examinations of the debtor or third parties concerning the debtor's conduct, property, and financial affairs. A Rule 2004 examination is available before any adversary proceeding exists, and bankruptcy courts describe its scope as wider than ordinary civil discovery. Creditors use it to decide whether litigation is worth the cost. Trustees use it to find assets.

Debtors and trustees hold affirmative motions of their own: turnover of estate property under 11 U.S.C. § 542, use of cash collateral and post-petition financing in reorganizations under §§ 363 and 364, assumption or rejection of leases and contracts under § 365, and defense of claimed exemptions. Creditors counter with motions to dismiss for abuse under § 707(b), to convert a case between chapters under §§ 706 and 1307, or to appoint a trustee or examiner in chapter 11 under § 1104. Each motion is a lever that moves the case toward liquidation, reorganization, or dismissal.

Two features tie all of this together in a bankruptcy court. First, the judge who rules on a discrete dispute also supervises the entire case, so every motion is argued against the background of the case's overall trajectory. Second, the deadlines are unforgiving: objection windows, stay hearing timetables, and claims bar dates all run from fixed events, and missing one can extinguish a right that no later brilliance restores. Litigants arriving from general civil practice notice both differences immediately. When a dispute ends in a final order, the loser's next question is where to appeal, and bankruptcy has its own answer, taken up next.

Every final order of the bankruptcy court can be appealed, and the route is set by statute. Under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a), appeals from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Vermont go to the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, the same court that referred the case in the first place. A district judge sits as an appellate court and reviews the record rather than retrying the dispute. The notice of appeal is due within fourteen days of the order under Fed. R. Bankr. P. 8002, one of the shortest appellate windows in federal practice.

Some circuits offer a different first stop. Congress authorized bankruptcy appellate panels, known as BAPs, in which three bankruptcy judges drawn from around the circuit hear appeals in place of a district judge. Five circuits operate them: the First, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth. The Second Circuit, which includes Vermont, does not, so the district court route is the only first-level appeal here. Nationally the BAPs received 329 filings in the twelve months ending March 31, 2025, a modest stream beside the appellate work the district courts absorb.

Standards of review follow the familiar federal pattern. The district court reviews the bankruptcy court's findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo, and it may affirm, reverse, modify, or remand. Because the appellate record is the record made below, the fight is largely won or lost at the evidentiary hearing in the bankruptcy court. Appellate counsel can reframe arguments. They cannot create facts.

From the district court, a second appeal lies to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit under 28 U.S.C. § 158(d). The regional courts of appeals received 40,612 filings in the twelve months ending March 31, 2025, an increase of 3 percent, of which 21,821 were civil appeals, 10,092 criminal, and 5,005 administrative agency matters. Bankruptcy appeals travel inside that civil stream. A separate specialized court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, received 1,459 filings in the same period, but its docket of patent and similar matters never includes an appeal from a bankruptcy court.

The two-step ladder has a bypass. Under 28 U.S.C. § 158(d)(2), the bankruptcy court, the district court, or the parties acting jointly may certify an appeal for direct review in the court of appeals when it presents a question of law without controlling precedent, involves a matter of public importance, or would materially advance the case. The circuit must agree to accept it. Direct certification exists because bankruptcy questions can otherwise circulate for years without a circuit-level answer that binds anyone.

Finality also works differently in bankruptcy than in ordinary civil litigation. A bankruptcy case is a collection of controversies, and an order that conclusively resolves one of them, such as an order granting stay relief or confirming a plan, is appealable when entered rather than at the end of the whole case. The practical consequence is that appellate deadlines arrive throughout the case, and counsel must track them continuously instead of waiting for a single judgment day.

Beyond appeals, the court sits inside a wider federal docket. The district courts nationwide received 271,802 civil case filings in the twelve months ending March 31, 2025, a 22 percent decline that followed the winding down of the multidistrict earplug litigation, and 345,446 matters when civil cases and criminal defendants are counted together. A bankruptcy appeal joins that queue when it reaches the district judge. The numbers explain pace: an appeal is one file on a docket that also holds trials, sentencings, and injunctions.

Bankruptcy also collides constantly with the state courts. The automatic stay freezes state-court suits against the debtor the moment a petition is filed, which is why a defendant on the eve of a state trial sometimes files, and why a plaintiff may learn of a bankruptcy from a suggestion of stay rather than a phone call. A claim frozen in state court may then be liquidated in the bankruptcy court through the claims process, sent back for trial after stay relief, or folded into a plan by agreement.

A party can also move a state case bodily into the federal system. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1452, a claim within bankruptcy jurisdiction may be removed to the district where the state action is pending, and the bankruptcy court then decides whether to keep it or to remand on any equitable ground. Removal converts a state docket entry into a federal adversary proceeding almost overnight.

Abstention doctrines push in the opposite direction. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c)(1), a bankruptcy court may abstain from hearing a related proceeding in the interest of justice or of comity with state courts. Section 1334(c)(2) goes further and makes abstention mandatory for certain state-law claims that are merely related to the case, have no independent federal basis, and can be timely adjudicated in a state forum. Family law offers the clearest illustration: divorce, custody, and the establishment of support stay with the state courts, and the § 362(b) exceptions keep most of those proceedings moving despite the stay.

For a litigant, the geography lesson reduces to three questions asked at every stage. Is this dispute inside the bankruptcy case, in the district court above it, or in a state court beside it? Which court's clock is running? Does the current order end the dispute for appellate purposes? Counsel who work in this court answer those questions reflexively, which is precisely why the final section turns to how a client finds such counsel and what the hiring conversation should cover.

The map matters because hiring should follow it. A lawyer who appears regularly in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Vermont knows the standing orders, the trustees, and the rhythms of the docket, and that knowledge is different from general litigation skill. Bankruptcy is a code-driven practice with its own rules, its own vocabulary, and its own repeat players. The sensible client interviews for that specific fluency rather than for courtroom experience in the abstract, and this final section explains what to ask and how to check the answers.

The first sorting question is which side of the practice a firm serves. Debtor-side consumer lawyers file chapter 7 and chapter 13 cases, manage means testing, and defend clients in dischargeability suits. Creditor-side lawyers lift stays for lenders, defend preference actions, and prosecute claims objections. Commercial practitioners handle chapter 11 from either direction. The skills overlap less than outsiders expect. A firm that files consumer petitions all year may rarely try an adversary proceeding, and a lender's firm may never have drafted a plan. Asking what a bankruptcy court actually sees the firm do is a fair and revealing question.

Trustee relationships are part of the texture of any bankruptcy court. Chapter 7 cases receive a trustee from the panel maintained for the district. Chapter 13 cases run through a standing trustee who administers the plans. Chapter 11 cases proceed under the oversight of the United States Trustee Program, the Justice Department component that polices the system. Effective counsel know how these officials read schedules, what documentation they expect, and when they escalate. That familiarity is legitimate professional capital. It does not mean influence, and a lawyer who hints otherwise should be shown the door.

Fees in bankruptcy are regulated in ways unusual for American law practice. Every attorney for a debtor must disclose the compensation paid or promised under 11 U.S.C. § 329 and Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2016, and the bankruptcy court may order excessive fees returned. In chapter 13, fees are commonly paid in installments through the plan itself. In chapter 11, professionals must be employed with court approval under 11 U.S.C. § 327, and their fees are awarded under § 330 after notice and review, with interim compensation available under § 331. No comparable supervision exists in ordinary civil litigation, and it exists here because every dollar paid to a professional is a dollar the estate cannot pay to creditors.

Consumer practice carries an extra statutory overlay. Firms that provide bankruptcy assistance to consumer debtors are debt relief agencies under the Code, and 11 U.S.C. §§ 526 through 528 regulate their advertising, require written contracts, and prohibit certain kinds of advice. A firm that explains these rules unprompted shows exactly the code fluency a client wants. Flat fees are common in chapter 7, plan-funded fees in chapter 13, and hourly billing with retainers in commercial work. Each structure is legitimate, and each belongs in writing before the petition is signed.

Court-specific experience can be tested politely. Ask how many cases the firm has filed in this bankruptcy court in recent years, and under which chapters. Ask who will attend the meeting of creditors and whether the same lawyer will handle an adversary proceeding if one erupts. Ask how the firm charges when a routine case turns contested. Ask what happens if the case needs an appeal to the district court, since appellate work is sometimes a separate engagement. Concrete answers signal real practice. Evasion signals marketing.

Credentials are checkable facts, not impressions. A lawyer must be admitted to practice before the district court to appear in its bankruptcy court, and an out-of-state specialist appears pro hac vice alongside local counsel where the rules allow it. State bar records show licensure and discipline history. Certification in consumer or business bankruptcy law by a national certifying body exists and can be confirmed with the certifying organization. None of these credentials guarantees judgment. Their absence, when claimed, ends the conversation.

This directory approaches the same problem with evidence. Where a firm has earned verification, its checks have been reviewed individually by an editor, each stamped with the date it was last performed: licensure, bar standing, practice areas, and related facts a client would otherwise assemble from scattered public sources. The public profile shows each check's name, a plain-English description, its status, and that date. For a bankruptcy court engagement, the license and bar standing checks are the ones to read first. Listings are ordered by plan tier and disclosed as such, so position on a page reflects a plan tier rather than a ranking of skill. The directory recommends no firm. It shows dated evidence and leaves the judgment where it belongs, with the client.

Use the checks as a floor, then build on them. Confirm bar standing through the state's official lawyer lookup. Read the firm's answers about this bankruptcy court against the structure described in this guide: the referral from the district court, core and non-core authority, the automatic stay, the avoidance powers, the fourteen-day appeal clock. A firm that can explain those mechanics in plain language, and can say which of them your case will actually meet, has demonstrated the thing that matters most.

The guide began with placement: one state, one district court, one bankruptcy court beneath it, and the Second Circuit above. That geography is also the hiring standard. The right firm for a Vermont bankruptcy knows the court's place in the federal system because it works inside that system every week, from first petition to final decree, and it can carry a case up the ladder described here if the case demands it. Verification tells you the firm is what it claims to be. The interview tells you it knows this ground. Together they turn a directory search into an informed decision about the one court where your case will live.