11 U.S.C. § 341 — Meetings of creditors and equity security holders

(a) Within a reasonable time after the order for relief starts a case, the United States trustee must call and preside over a meeting of creditors. (b) The United States trustee may also call a meeting of equity security holders (shareholders or other owners). (c) No court may preside at, or even attend, any meeting under this section, including the final creditors' meeting. Some rules would otherwise require a creditor to be represented by a lawyer at this meeting — a local court rule, a State constitution, other nonbankruptcy law, or any other requirement. This section overrides all of those: a creditor with a consumer debt, or that creditor's representative (which can be an entity, an employee of an entity, or someone representing more than one creditor), may appear at and take part in the meeting in a chapter 7 or chapter 13 case, either alone or together with a lawyer. Still, no creditor is ever required to have a lawyer at this meeting. (d) Before the meeting ends, the trustee must question the debtor, under oath, to make sure a chapter 7 debtor is aware of: (1) the possible consequences of seeking a bankruptcy discharge, including effects on the debtor's credit history; (2) the debtor's ability to instead file under a different chapter; (3) what it means to have debts discharged under this title; and (4) what it means to reaffirm (agree to keep paying) a debt, including what section 524(d) of this title says about that. (e) Even though subsections (a) and (b) normally require these meetings, the court may order the U.S. trustee to skip holding one for creditors or equity security holders. This takes a request from an interested party, notice, a hearing, and a showing of cause — and only applies if the debtor already filed a plan and had gathered support (solicited acceptances) for it before the case began.