U.S. Trustee Program Obtains Judgment Requiring National Consumer Bankruptcy Firm to Refund Nearly $200,000 Due to Bankruptcy Code Violations and Service Deficiencies

The Department of Justice's U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) recently obtained a judgment requiring a nationwide consumer law firm to refund a total of $196,527 in legal fees to dozens of clients based on the firm's deficient services and other violations of the Bankruptcy Code.

On March 17, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Oregon entered a stipulated judgment against Recovery Law Group APC (RLG); its owner, Nicholas Wajda; and one of its partners, Grover Peters III. As part of the judgment, RLG agreed to refund fees to a debtor who nearly lost her home because of the firm's poor services and to refund fees paid by 98 clients in Oregon for whom the firm had not yet filed a case. The judgment also bars RLG, Wajda, and Peters from advertising legal services or filing bankruptcy cases in the district for 18 months.

"Consumer debtors' attorneys who provide substandard services endanger their clients' pursuit of a fresh start," said Acting U.S. Trustee Jonas Anderson for Region 18, which includes the District of Oregon. "The USTP will continue to hold these attorneys responsible for their abusive conduct."

The Oregon judgment marks the USTP's third successful enforcement action against RLG in about a year for their actions affecting debtors throughout the country. Last April, the USTP obtained an order from the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia imposing $48,000 in sanctions and other relief against RLG and an affiliated attorney for their deficient legal services and violations of court orders. And in September, the USTP won a judgment in the Eastern District of Michigan imposing more than $392,000 in penalties and a three-year suspension against RLG for its false and misleading disclosures in more than 200 bankruptcy cases.

The USTP's Oregon enforcement action stemmed from a case in which an elderly woman sought RLG's help filing for bankruptcy to resolve debts she incurred as the victim of a fraud scheme. After a consultation from Wajda, who is not licensed to practice law in Oregon, the debtor paid a $1,838 fee to the firm to represent her in a chapter 7 bankruptcy case, and RLG had its non-attorney staff prepare the debtor's bankruptcy documents.

RLG filed the case as a chapter 7 liquidation despite the debtor having nonexempt equity in her house that would be at risk for sale by the private trustee overseeing the case to pay creditors. The debtor was eligible for chapter 13, which would allow her to keep the house while paying her debts through a repayment plan, but Peters did not seek to convert the case to chapter 13 until after the chapter 7 trustee took steps to sell the debtor's house. Peters - who also acknowledged at a hearing that the case never should have been filed under chapter 7 - continued to put the house at risk by failing to file documents on time and by filing documents that required multiple amendments as they were incompetently prepared by RLG's non-attorney staff. In November 2025, nearly two-and-a-half years after the case was filed, the bankruptcy court confirmed the debtor's chapter 13 repayment plan.

The USTP's mission is to promote the integrity and efficiency of the bankruptcy system for the benefit of all stakeholders - debtors, creditors and the public. The USTP consists of 21 regions with 82 field offices nationwide and an Executive Office in Washington, D.C. Learn more about the USTP at https://www.justice.gov/ust.