ABI and the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees (NABT) are planning a joint-venture web site to post notices for the sale of assets of debtors and trustees in bankruptcy cases. The site will be located at http://www.bankruptcysales.org and will be linked to both ABI World and the NABT site. We hope to launch the new site this fall. The listings would include both scheduled sales of property as well as listings of assets that are available for sale but not yet submitted to the bankruptcy court. The site will include a search engine of the database of assets, an index of the asset categories, a site map and the capability to conduct transactions online. The site will be free to the public for the buying of assets. The ability to post information will be limited to ABI and NABT members and others who pay a transaction fee. It is hoped that the combined resources of the two organizations will provide a powerful new method for trustees to centrally post a national register of available assets, thus maximizing returns. The prominence of the site will assist the courts in broadening the required public notice of the sales. ABI members working on the project are Joseph S.U. Bodoff (Chair), Hon. William H. Brown, Dillon E. Jackson, John D. Penn and Jamie H.M. Sprayregen. NABT leadership has included David Birdsell, Paul Swanson and Bob Waldschmidt.

Leaders Convene for Strategic Planning Session

The last three years have been marked by extraordinary growth for the ABI. To help us manage this growth and think for the long term, about a dozen members of the ABI Board of Directors will join the Executive Committee and key members of the ABI staff for a two-day strategic planning meeting September 24-25 in Sandpoint, Idaho. The session will build on the work of an earlier group, which met in 1997. The planning meeting will be led by a professional facilitator, Dr. Gordon Bermant. In addition to his work as a facilitator, Bermant has held senior staff positions at the Federal Judicial Center and the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees. An ABI member, Bermant is uniquely qualified to help the leadership hone its goals and vision as we begin the new millennium. The results of the session will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal.

State Court Judges Programs Continue This Fall

ABI's popular programs to teach state court trial and appellate judges about bankruptcy law and procedure continue this fall with new programs in Texas and Oklahoma. The Texas program is in conjunction with the annual Judicial Conference on Sept. 28 in Austin. Faculty members are Judges Leif Clark and Larry Kelly and practitioners Mark Browning (Texas Attorney General's Office) and Stephen Sather (Overstreet, Winn & Edwards). The Oklahoma program is also a plenary session for all state judiciary and will be held on Nov. 10 in Oklahoma City. Faculty members will include most or all of the state's bankruptcy bench, including John TeSelle, Richard Bohanon and Dana Rasure, joined by Hon. George Paine (M.D. Tenn.). The programs are supported by a grant from the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Endowment for Education.

Thanks to Sponsors of Northeast and Southeast Bankruptcy Conferences

ABI thanks the many sponsors who supported the Northeast Bankruptcy Conference (NEBC) in July and the Southeast Bankruptcy Workshop (SEBW) in August. Patrons of the NEBC, who contributed at least $2,500, included Choate, Hall & Stewart, The Finch Group, Foothill Capital Corp., Goodwin Procter & Hoar LLP, KPMG LLP, Nixon Peabody LLP, Paragon Capital LLC, The Recovery Group, TSSG LLC, Schottenstein Bernstein Capital Group LLC and West Group. Thanks also go to the many firms from throughout the New England area that contributed at various levels of sponsorship.

ABI also thanks the sponsors of the SEBW: Allomet Partners Ltd., Anderson Bauman Tourtellot Vos & Co., Bank of America, BDO Seidman, Berwind Financial Group, Clifton Gunderson L.L.C., Continental Plants Corp., Electronic Processing Inc., Equity Partners Inc., FINOVA Capital Corp., Foothill Capital Corp., Fox & Associates, KPMG L.L.P., Morris-Anderson & Associates Ltd., The Recovery Group, Silverman Group and West Group.

Welcome to New Staff Member

ABI welcomed its newest staff member in August. Vanessa York joined the staff as receptionist and staff assistant. Vanessa is a May 1999 graduate of Virginia Polytechnical Institute in Blacksburg, Va., where she majored in art history and classical studies. A native of Seattle, Vanessa has spent the last nine years in the metropolitan Washington area. Please welcome her as you call into ABI headquarters!