Bankruptcy
Consumer Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Business Chapter 7 liquidation, Chapter 11 reorganization, Subchapter V small-business filings. Office signature work — with its own intake portal.
Ciolek LTD. Attorneys at Law
The law office that takes the call.
Twenty years of files in a Toledo office — bankruptcy, criminal, family, real estate, employment, civil rights, IP, federal forfeiture. Direct access to the lawyer, clear work product, and a secure intake built to keep the file organized from day one.
01
What we do
A general civil practice — built around hard problems.
Toledo and Northwest Ohio. Bankruptcy (consumer and business), criminal defense, family law, employment, real estate, civil rights, intellectual property, federal asset forfeiture, student-loan defense, probate. Federal court, state court, and administrative tribunals.
Criminal & family
State and federal criminal defense — misdemeanor to felony. Domestic relations: divorce, custody, support, civil protection orders, guardianships, juvenile.
Federal & regulatory
Federal asset forfeiture, intellectual property, student-loan defense, immigration, PUCO and administrative hearings, election law, public-records litigation.
Civil litigation & appeals
§ 1983 civil rights, defamation, antitrust, contract disputes, professional-conduct defense, real estate and landlord–tenant, collections defense, FCRA, employment, ERISA, and appeals.
02
How we work
Intake is the first part of the legal work, not the part before it.
The delays that hurt a case — any case, not just bankruptcy — usually trace back to the same things: scattered records, lost email threads, three half-started intakes nobody can keep straight, and a client who's tired of being asked for the same document twice. The portals exist so that doesn't happen.
- Three portals, one workflow. Personal bankruptcy, business bankruptcy, and a general matter lane — each tuned to the records that case type actually needs, all running on the same secure intake under the hood.
- One Submission ID per matter — kept open for the life of the file. No second submission to merge, no "which email thread was that in."
- Documents land directly in the office archive. No email forwarding. No third-party drives. Encrypted in transit and at rest.
- Every category tracks its own state — have, partial, missing, send-later, or not-applicable — so the office sees at a glance what's already in and what's still out there.
- Return whenever more arrives. A tax return six weeks later, a bank statement three months later, a court order the day it drops — same submission, same place, same context.
- Joint filers, co-parties, co-owners, and authorized signers all have a place in the intake. You're not forced to shoehorn a business matter into a personal form, or vice versa.
Clear records lead to clearer advice. Less repeated email. Fewer "did you get the…" check-ins.
03
The attorney
Who you'll be working with.
Scott A. Ciolek runs the practice from Toledo, with admissions in Ohio, Michigan, three federal districts, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He came to law from a different angle — a B.S. in electrical engineering from Dayton, then a J.D. from the University of Toledo — which mostly shows up in how he reads a contract, a tax return, a forfeiture notice, or a complaint: looking first for the missing variable, then for the working answer. Twenty years in, the practice is built around the kinds of cases that don't resolve themselves: bankruptcies that protect a household or a business, federal forfeiture defenses with hard procedural deadlines, IP fights where the technology actually matters, criminal cases that need someone in your corner before you say anything, and the day-to-day civil work — family, real estate, employment, probate, civil rights — that keeps clients' lives moving.
Bar admissions
- Ohio
- Michigan
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of Ohio
- U.S. District Court · Eastern District of Michigan
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of Illinois
- U.S. Court of Appeals · 6th Circuit
Education
- University of Toledo · J.D.
- University of Dayton · B.S.
Affiliations
- National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA)
- Ohio State Bar Association
- State Bar of Michigan
- Federal Bar Association
- Toledo Bar Association · Lucas County Bar Association
04
Office
Where to find us, and when.
Address
901 Washington Street · Toledo, Ohio 43604
Ohio
(419) 740-5935
Michigan
(734) 887-6881
Email
info@counselor.pro
Hours
Mon–Thu · 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. · Fri · 9 a.m. – noon (Eastern)
Service area
Toledo · Lucas County · Northwest Ohio · Southeast Michigan
Don't have everything yet?
Start anyway. Upload what you have. Mark what's missing. The office would rather see a partial file with honest gaps than wait weeks for a complete one.