Who we are  

You might want to know a few things about me and our office to understand what makes us tick, and why I passionately believe in Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.

I grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee (about 100 miles northeast of Knoxville). I graduated from Science Hill in 1973 and went to a small college there called Milligan College. While there I met a girl. Her dad’s job was ending and her scholarship was being cut. She had to move back home to southern California. I was ready for adventure and decided to transfer college with her.

We went to Long Beach State for a semester. I was miserable in school there. I hated my pre-med courses. I took advantage of the aptitude testing that was available and discovered that I was perfectly designed to be a lawyer but refused to consider law at that time. (In those days lawyers were portrayed on television as sneaky liars and I didn’t want to be like that.)

I decide to drop out of school and get married. The plan was that I would work and put her through school and then she would then work and I would come back to finish my last year of school.

At first the plan worked well. I started working and she continued her education. Then things began unraveling. I became sick with ulcerative colitis. It is a very serious autoimmune disease where your body attacks your colon and your gut literally starts bleeding and rotting away. Over the course of a year, I became sicker and sicker. I had health insurance and zero debt. My car and furniture were paid for. I had $5000 in the bank. I was sick and had to go on bed rest in July, 1977. By September, 1977, I was in the hospital and we were consuming our savings. I wasted away to 134 pounds (and I am a big guy). In October, my colon was removed. To this day I wear an ostomy bag. That stress rocked my world.

While I was in the hospital, my health insurance company was put into receivership by the state of California. In other words, my health insurance became worthless because my insurance company was broke. I had six weeks of hospitalization and a very complex 8-hour surgery and no way to pay it. I experienced first hand the expectancy of huge bills, bad health, a bad prognosis, and no hope of recovery. We had lived off our savings and had huge bills. Literally by God’s grace, due to the fact that I had been sick in bed for 2 months before my hospitalization, I qualified retroactively for Medi-Cal (California’s version of TennCare) and all my bills were covered. Had it not been for that, I would have needed to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy myself. Because of this I understand where my clients are coming from. I understand the stress of not knowing how bills will be paid. By January, 1978, I returned to work and started planning to return to college in the spring. However, in February 1978 I had a very serious adhesion problem in my bowel that almost killed me and I went back for more surgery. Medi-Cal again paid that bill too. I dodged the bankruptcy bullet a second time!

What I did not understand at that time was that while I was convalescing and feeling a call into the ministry, things were hard for my wife. We were both only 22. I was looking forward to college, seminary and a career. She felt like she was living with what she called “a ticking time bomb”. She fully expected me to die unexpectedly. Anxiety was a way of life that left us numb.

I went to school at Azusa Pacific College with as Bible major. She went to work. I made great grades. She made new “friends”. Upon graduation I knew that I wasn’t ready for seminary so I entered the work place and went into sales. I went to work for a national soft-contact lens company, Wesley-Jesson. While there I led the company in sales. However, I was not content. I saw that my boss and his boss had to travel and spend lots of time on the road. While I was contemplating seminary training my wife moved out. She had been having a relationship with her boss. Eventually, he left his family and they moved in together.

I looked at my life and knew that I did not want to live as a salesman, living in hotel rooms. I figured there was no point in going to seminary. Being divorced was a career killer for a want-to-be pastor in a conservative church. I came to realize lawyers were in fact quite honest, that my impressions from TV were not fact-based. I remembered my aptitude tests from my earlier days at Long Beach State. I decided to go to law school. I had to figure out how to pay for law school. I looked at accredited schools throughout the country and fortunately discovered that Memphis State (now the University of Memphis) was the least expensive fully accredited law school in the country. My plan was to re-establish my Tennessee residency and to apply to only two schools. Memphis State and the University of Tennessee.

As I moved back across the country from California, I stopped into Memphis State and met with the head of the admissions committee who said I could be admitted right then for the fall of 1980 class. I loved the school and decided to attend. However, I decided to stay with my parents for a year, work, save a ton of money, and get in-state tuition. That’s what I did.

I economized. I lived frugally in school dorm housing. I was on the meal plan. I worked 20 hours a week. I made great grades, got onto the Law Review staff, Moot Court Board, won Best Advocate in Moot Court and represented the university on the traveling moot court team. Our team did very well. I wanted to come to Chattanooga to be a lawyer. My goal upon leaving law school was to be a trial lawyer and I got a job with a great law firm in Chattanooga. I worked for Shumacker & Thompson. It had a great legacy. (Ralph Shumacker, who founded the firm, had helped try Nuremburg Trials following World War II.) In 1984, I passed the Tennessee Bar on my first try. In 1986, I passed the Georgia Bar on my first try also.

As a new trial lawyer, I did what most trial lawyers do; I tried cases in General Sessions Court. I did collections work. I enjoyed the trials, but I hated the collections aspect. I appreciated the great lawyers who were mentoring me and investing in me to improve my lawyering skills, but I was conflicted. Too often, I would get these Friday afternoon phone calls: “Mr. Rannick, you represent so-and-so and you sued me, and I’ve tried to pay you, but couldn’t and now you’ve garnished my husband’s paycheck. We don’t have enough money to pay our living expenses, buy our medicine, etc. Would you please release our check and can we set up payments?” I hated foreclosing on houses, evicting tenants from their home or business and chasing down debtors. I was deeply conflicted. Just seven years earlier, I had been sick with medical bills and did not know how I would make ends meet. Now, I was being asked by my clients not to show mercy, but to seek justice! The money was owed. Collect it!

Mind you, I have nothing but respect for my colleagues who today collect on debts. They do a very important service. I just found it was troubling to me to do that kind of work. I decided to make a move to the other side of the bar. I left the creditor side where I had learned bankruptcy law and moved to the debtor side.

That’s my story of how I came to start my practice in July of 1988 doing Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy debtor work. By and large, I love my clients. My clients are typically hard working, but unfortunate. They are friends; they are in my church. They are just like me and just like you.

In my own way, I suppose I did find my ministry here on Brainerd Road. Over the years the United States Supreme Court has allowed attorneys to become certified as specialists. I sat for my boards and passed on my first try. Since 1994, I have been Board Certified in Consumer Bankruptcy Law by the American Board of Certification. This is the Board connected with the American Bankruptcy Institute. I have also become involved with the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.

American Board of Certification	National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys

I’ve been blessed with an extraordinary staff. My associate, LuAnn Whaley, came to work for me in 1995 as a college student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She worked her way through school and graduated. She started as a receptionist and worked her way up to office manager. I call her the smartest person in the building. She had the spunk and ambition to go to law school in Nashville while supporting herself and working full time. In 2003 I was honored to introduce her to the Tennessee Supreme Court as she was sworn into the Tennessee bar. She’s extra organized and is my right arm. If I personally had to file a bankruptcy I would hire her. She knows her stuff.

My staff has been with me forever. I have very low turnover of staff members. Each is well trained and is attentive to the over 15,000 clients we have here.

Our goal is to provide hope and a fresh start. We work as a team. Due to the complexity of the practice there are things I cannot do anymore. Years ago, there were no computers and I personally typed bankruptcy cases on carbon-paper forms. Now we file all documents electronically online. I don’t know how to do that. Many aspects of the practice have changed but still, some things remain the same.

Every client deserves to be treated with respect. Every client deserves to have attorneys to evaluate the case, not merely a paralegal. Every client deserves to be told the truth, whether it’s painful or not, whether it results in my being hired or not. My goal is to be compassionate, very competent, and give to you the quality of service I would want to be given to a family member of mine.

Ken Rannick

July 14, 2010

P.S. – The best benefit to being in Chattanooga was that I met my lovely wife of 25 years. Aleta and I have three great children. I was impatient by getting married too young to the wrong girl, but God blessed me with the wife he intended for me all along.