The Third Branch — the blog of the Federal Courts, has published some statistics on where their self-represented bankruptcy filings are occurring.

Here is the key table:

The filings are heavily distributed towards the West:

It is an astonishing range, from 27% in the Central District of CA, to under 2% in some states.  It makes me think that the differnce is explained more by bar and court cultures than by economic differences.

Moreover, the self-represented percentage is up very significantly overall:

[W]hile non-pro se bankruptcy petitions increased 98 percent over the last fi ve years, pro se bankruptcy petitions grew 187 percent over the same time frame.