There are a few reasons you might want to learn about bankruptcy. First, you might just be curious. You could have seen something on the news about a celebrity you follow going bankrupt. Or, you might be in a business situation where you’re not sure you’ll be able to pay what you owe. Or on a personal level, you might have cashed all your chips into credit cards that you’ll never be able to pay back.

In all of these cases, it would be better to get an early understanding of the consequences of going bankrupt and how to deal with it than it is to try to fight against ignorance when it will actually matter. To get some good information in mind, consider the following four resources.

Find a Law Firm You Trust

Easily, the best way to learn about bankruptcy is by talking to a lawyer about it. In addition to that, many law firms have a bankruptcy frequently asked questions page that will give you a lot of specific answers to questions that people regularly have about the topic. When you go to these sites, there’s often a live person on the other end to ask questions to as well. That’s how some of these places get clients in some cases.

Scour the Web for Video Tutorials

There are plenty of ways to watch web tutorials about bankruptcy as well. Just make sure that they are up to date and relevant both in your geographical area and with respect to either business or personal reasons for the event. By comparing and contrasting a few videos, you should quickly be able to get the basic gist of what you’re up against, and then you’ll at least know how to ask more specific questions later to interested parties.

Go Pro and Hit Up College Course

If your interest in bankruptcy is on the professional scheme of things, why not take some college courses about the law? There are always the online ones for relatively cheap, and if you’re actually thinking about becoming a lawyer, then school is the way to go anyway. Or perhaps you already have some sort of law degree, and have decided that your personal practice would like to focus on bankruptcy cases. It all washes out to the same avenue.

Ask Someone Who Went Bankrupt

The final great way to learn about bankruptcy is to talk to someone who went bankrupt! They will be able to give you details about what they went through and why, what their lawyers told them to do and why, and what they learned from the experience as a whole. You could probably even ask for a chance to talk to their legal representatives to find out details from that perspective.