November saw 2,145 consumer and business filings, which is a 79 percent increase from a year earlier. For the first 11 months, L.A. County filings were up 81.5 percent. Those percentages are slightly below the results in OC and Riverside counties. “Business bankruptcies are through the roof; I’ve never seen it like this and when businesses go, jobs go,” Evan Smiley, a partner in Weiland, Golden, Smiley, Wang, Ekvall & Strok, told the OC Register. Expect the numbers to rise even more in 2009 - we're just now seeing the impact of the credit crisis on businesses large and small.