Since June 2024, section 341 meetings in the Central District of California are conducted by Zoom for Chapters 7, 12 and 13. You join from home, hold your identification up to the camera, answer questions under oath, and you are done in about ten minutes.
Chapter 11 meetings in this district remain telephonic. Everything below applies to consumer Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 cases.
Before the day
Your notice of the meeting includes a Zoom meeting ID and passcode specific to your trustee. Trustees each run their own recurring meeting room. Do not use a link a friend gave you from their case.
- Install Zoom and open it once, days ahead, so you are not fighting an update at 9:55.
- Test your camera and microphone. Both are required. Audio only is not acceptable for a Chapter 7 or 13 meeting here.
- Set your Zoom display name to the exact name on your petition, first and last. Not a nickname, not your phone model, not a business name.
- Charge the device or plug it in. A meeting that drops halfway through gets continued.
Camera on, identification in hand
You will be asked to hold your government photo identification and your Social Security card up to the lens, and to stay on camera while the trustee reads the required questions. Poor lighting is the practical enemy here. Sit facing a window or a lamp, not with one behind you.
Some trustees ask you to email documents in advance instead of showing them on camera. Follow whatever your notice and your attorney tell you, because trustees vary and the instruction that matters is the one from yours.
Do not join from a moving car
Trustees continue meetings for this. No driving, no parking lot with the engine running, no walking down the street. You are testifying under oath. Sit somewhere quiet with a door, and if you have children at home, arrange for someone else to have them for half an hour.
What the wait looks like
You are placed in a waiting room and admitted when your case is reached. Meetings are scheduled in blocks, so several debtors sit in the same session and hear each other's cases. Your appointment time is the start of the block, not your turn.
Budget an hour even though your part takes ten minutes. People who schedule a call for twenty minutes after their meeting time end up distracted and rushed.
Recording the session is prohibited. So is screenshotting it. The trustee makes the official record.
“The Zoom shift genuinely changed who can get through a bankruptcy. I have clients in Palmdale, in Riverside, on the Central Coast, people who would have burned a full workday and a tank of gas to answer seven questions downtown. Now they take a ten-minute break in a spare room. That is not a small thing for someone already counting every dollar.”
Naomi Reyes-AshfordBecause it is remote, geography stopped mattering
Which division hears your case depends on where you live, not where your attorney sits. This office serves all five divisions of the Central District, Los Angeles, San Fernando Valley, Santa Ana, Riverside and Northern, and with consultations and 341 meetings both on video, clients in every one of them go through the case without traveling to Beverly Hills.
If technology fails
Call your attorney immediately rather than emailing. There is often time to rejoin from a phone, and trustees generally accommodate a genuine connection failure if you are reachable and trying. Silence is what gets a meeting continued.
If your case does get continued, it is usually reset within a few weeks. Annoying, not fatal, unless you miss the second one too.
Questions we get asked
Can I attend by phone instead?
For a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 in this district, no. Video with the camera on is the requirement, because identification has to be verified visually. Chapter 11 meetings here are still telephonic.
What do I wear?
Something you would wear to a doctor's appointment. Nobody expects a suit, but a t-shirt with writing on it and a bed visible behind you reads badly to a trustee who is deciding how carefully to look at your schedules.
What if I don't have a computer?
A smartphone works. Prop it up so it is stable, connect to wifi if you can, and find a quiet room. Some people use a public library study room. If you truly have no device, tell your attorney well ahead of time so arrangements can be discussed.
Will other debtors hear my case?
Yes. Meetings run in blocks and others are admitted at the same time. They will hear your name, your case, and the trustee's questions. It is a public meeting and always has been, even when it was held in a downtown conference room.
The week before your meeting, open Zoom, join a test call, and put your identification and Social Security card in the drawer of the desk you will be sitting at. Those two steps prevent nearly every continuance we see.