Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholars

Professor Andrew B. Dawson, Resident Scholar, Spring 2017

Prof. Andrew B. Dawson of the University of Miami School of Law (Miami) will serve as the Robert M. Zinman ABI Resident Scholar for the spring 2017 semester. Prof. Dawson teaches contracts, commercial law, secured transactions, bankruptcy and advanced topics in bankruptcy. His research has focused on the intersection of federal bankruptcy and labor laws, both in the corporate and municipal bankruptcy contexts. In addition to his scholarship in this field, Prof. Dawson has served as the reporter for the Labor and Benefits Subcommittee of ABI’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11. He will be based in ABI's Alexandria, Va., office, assisting ABI with its educational programming and in its role as the authoritative source of bankruptcy information for Congress, the media and the public. He is also a panelist at the ABI Annual Spring Meeting.

Mellissa Jacoby

Melissa B. Jacoby studies and teaches bankruptcy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, the National Bankruptcy Conference, and the American College of Bankruptcy. Her activities before joining the legal academy include clerking for the Honorable Robert E. Ginsberg of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the Honorable Marjorie O. Rendell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and working as a staff attorney for the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. Jacoby contributes to the blog Credit Slips and is @melissabjacoby on Twitter. Jacoby closely followed the public portions of Detroit's chapter 9 in real time - listened to all the court hearings, monitored the docket, and discussed the legal issues with the local and national press and via social media.

Professor Michelle M. Harner, Resident Scholar, Fall 2015
  • Associate Dean for Academic Programs
  • Professor of Law, The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
  • Co-Director of the Business Law Program
  • Member, Dodd-Frank Study Group for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts
  • Member, American Law Institute
  • More than two dozen published articles on corporate restructuring, distressed debt and role of creditors committees, among other topics.

Michelle M. Harner is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Business Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.  She teaches courses in Bankruptcy and Creditors Rights, Business Associations, Business Planning, Corporate Finance, and Legal Profession.  Professor Harner is widely published and lectures frequently on various topics involving corporate governance, financially distressed entities, risk management, and related legal issues. Her most recent publications appear or are forthcoming in the Vanderbilt Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Fordham Law Review (reprinted in Corporate Practice Commentator), Washington & Lee Law Review, University of Illinois Law Review, Arizona Law Review (reprinted in Corporate Practice Commentator), and Florida Law Review.  Professor Harner is the Reporter to the ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 and a member of the Dodd-Frank Study Working Group for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.  She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. Professor Harner previously was in private practice in the business restructuring, insolvency, bankruptcy, and related transactional fields, most recently as a partner at the Chicago office of the international law firm Jones Day.

Professor Anne Lawton, Resident Scholar, Spring 2015

Prof. Anne Lawton of Michigan State University College of Law (East Lansing, Mich.) teaches bankruptcy, contracts and various commercial law courses at Michigan State University. Last year, she published a report on proposed small-business reforms for the Governance Advisory Committee of the ABI Commission to Reform Chapter 11, following up an article published in the ABI Law Review titled “An Argument for Simplifying the Code’s ‘Small Business Debtor’ Definition” (ABI Law Review Vol. 21, 55 (2013)). She also testified before the Commission on small business bankruptcy cases in 2013. Prior to Michigan State University, she taught at Roger Williams University School of Law where she earned tenure in 2007. Professor Lawton has taught in both law and business schools in her academic career. She has visited at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Ohio Northern University College of Law. Prior to teaching in law school, Professor Lawton was an assistant professor at the Richard T. Farmer School of Business at Miami University, and visited for three years at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. While at Roger Williams, Professor Lawton twice won the Teacher of the Year Award as voted by the graduating class. She also was nominated twice for a teaching award while at the Richard T. Farmer School of Business at Miami University. In addition to the ABI Law Review, Professor Lawton's scholarly works have been published in the Arizona Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Washington & Lee Law Review, George Mason Law Review, and the Kentucky Law Journal, as well as specialty law journals at Yale, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and Emory. She has also written several articles on teaching, and the Columbia School of Business published her case study entitled “Pyramid” after it won the Runner-Up Award in the Albert Sussman Ethics in Real Estate Competition. Prof. Lawton received an A.B. with honors from the University of Michigan in 1982 and both her J.D. cum laude and M.B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1986. She clerked for the Honorable David W. McKeague, for the Honorable James D. Gregg, and the Honorable James Brickley in Michigan. Prof.Lawton also worked as a corporate attorney for the Boston firm of Brown, Rudnick and is admitted to practice in both Massachusetts and Michigan.

Professor Lois Lupica, Resident Scholar, Fall 2014

Prof. Lois R. Lupica is the Maine Law Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland, where she teaches bankruptcy, secured transactions, commercial and consumer arbitration, and professional responsibility. Prior to becoming a professor in 1995, she practiced law at both Arnold & Porter LLP and White & Case LLP in New York. She is actively involved in numerous professional and academic organizations. A Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, Prof. Lupica is on the advisory board for the ABI Law Review as well as for The Journal of Bankruptcy Law & Practice, and she was ABI's spring 2007 resident scholar. She was appointed as the first Class of 1973/Glassman Faculty Research Scholar at Maine Law, was awarded the Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 2004 and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Fellowship in 2001, and received an honorable mention for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism, sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Conference of Chief Justices in 2005. She has served as dean of faculty and as a member of the Executive Board of the American Board of Certification, and she has been a co-coach and faculty advisor for the Duberstein Moot Court Competition in New York since 2005. Prof. Lupica served as the reporter for the Maine Task Force on Ethics 2000 from 2005-08. She is currently the principal investigator of a National Study of the Consumer Bankruptcy System, funded by ABI and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. She received her B.S. in consumer economics and housing from Cornell University and her J.D. magna cum laude from Boston University School of Law.

Professor Charles J. Tabb, Resident Scholar, Spring 2014

Prof. Charles J. Tabb is the Mildred Van Voorhis Jones Chair in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, Ill., and was ABI's spring 2014 resident scholar. He has authored or co-authored several dozen articles and several books, most recently The Law of Bankruptcy (Foundation Press, 3d Ed. 2013), A Debtor World: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Debt (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Bankruptcy Law: Principles, Policies & Practice (LexisNexis, 3d Ed. 2010). He practiced law with Carrington Coleman in Dallas before joining the Illinois faculty in 1984. Prof. Tabb has won numerous teaching awards and has served as a visiting professor in Texas and Colorado, as a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and Nottingham, England, and as the SBLI Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgia State. He is also on the global law faculty at Católica Global School of Law, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in Lisbon, Portugal. In 1993, Prof. Tabb was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, serving two terms. He also served as a commissioner from Illinois for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws from 1997-2001. Prof. Tabb advised the Chinese government on the reform of its enterprise bankruptcy law, which then went into effect in June 2008. He is a member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, for which he serves on the Board of Regents. Prof. Tabb received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he served on the Virginia Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.

Professor Kara J. Bruce, Resident Scholar, Fall 2013

Kara J. Bruce is an associate professor at the University of Toledo College of Law, where she teaches Business Bankruptcy, Secured Transactions, Commercial Paper, and Contracts. Her research focuses on bankruptcy law, including bankruptcy reform, bankruptcy jurisdiction, and judicial authority. Before joining the faculty, Professor Bruce worked as an attorney in the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP in Chicago, Illinois, where she represented clients in business reorganizations and commercial litigation matters. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tulane University Law School.

Professor Bruce has been active in a number of professional and civic organizations including the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association, the Chicago Community Trust, and the Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center. She is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for Lucas County, Ohio.

Resident Scholar Letter

I was honored to serve as the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Resident Scholar for the fall of 2013. Working at the ABI exposed me to cutting edge bankruptcy issues, expanded my knowledge of the field, and provided an opportunity to meet many of my heroes in the bankruptcy world. It was a true pleasure to get to know the people behind the names on those ABI emails, and I am grateful for the efforts of the entire staff to help me feel welcome during my time in Alexandria.
I began my work as the Resident Scholar in early August. My first assignment was to collect the greatest hits of the ABI journal and CLE program materials to create the BEST OF ABI 2013: THE YEAR IN BUSINESS BANKRUPTCY. Selecting from such a wealth of content was a difficult task, and many great pieces were left on the cutting room floor. This project gave me a greater appreciation for the enormous amount of high-quality, fresh, and non-repetitive bankruptcy materials that the ABI generates in a single year.

During my time at the ABI, the Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 was in full swing. I was delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to the Commission’s ongoing efforts. I worked most closely with Nancy Rapoport and William Harrington to think through some of the issues facing the governance committee. As someone who was a law student when BAPCPA was passed, I found it enlightening to take such a long-range view of the bankruptcy laws.
Like the scholars who preceded me, I spent a significant amount of my semester preparing for and conducting various audio and video presentations. I recorded podcast interviews roughly every other week, on topics ranging from diocesan bankruptcies to the treatment of corporate tax attributes in chapter 11 cases. I also hosted media teleconferences to mark the 5th anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse and to check in with the ongoing work of the ABI’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11. My video conversation with Eric Brunstad was without a doubt a highlight of my time at the ABI. It was a treat to test out the ABI’s new green screen and recording studio, and to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court term with a legend in bankruptcy appeals. Through it all, the ABI’s technology and public affairs teams provided wonderful ideas, technical prowess, and support.

The fall term proved to be a relatively light season for media calls, but I responded to several inquiries during my time at the ABI. Reporters most frequently called to obtain context on recently released bankruptcy statistics. I was pleased to field one such call from my hometown newspaper, the Toledo Blade.
It was a privilege to contribute to the ongoing work of the ABI during the fall of 2013. I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Executive Director Sam Gerdano for inviting me to join the team, and to everyone on the ABI staff for making my visit so enjoyable. I wish all the best to the incoming scholar, Professor Charles J. Tabb, of the University of Illinois College of Law.

Kara Bruce

Professor C. Scott Pryor, Resident Scholar, Spring 2013

Professor C. Scott Pryor is professor of law at the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where among other courses he teaches bankruptcy law and has organized a bankruptcy practicum where law students gain academic credit while working with a local firm or bankruptcy trustee. He was the ABI’s spring 2013 resident scholar. He has written or co-authored numerous articles including many on various aspects of bankruptcy law and the intersection of law and religion. Before joining the Regent faculty in 1998, Professor Pryor practiced law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Orlando Florida. He has also served as a Fulbright Scholar at the National Law University in Jodhpur, India and has been a visiting professor at the Campbell University Law School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Professor Pryor received his bachelor’s degree from Dordt College and his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

Resident Scholar Letter

My opportunity to serve as the 22nd ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence for the Spring 2013 semester began in the cold, dark days of January. The hospitality of the entire ABI staff quickly warmed my stay in Alexandria where I hit the ground running.

From the outset my most important assignment was to reorganize the all-day Nuts and Bolts CLE program for new lawyers that would be presented at April's ABI Annual Spring Meeting. With the help of my fellow panelists, I reorganized the program and over the course of three months rewrote all the materials distributed to those who attended. I expect that these materials will stand future "Nuts and Bolts" programs in good stead.

Later in January I moderated a call-in media briefing on current Chapter 9 cases and what lies ahead in municipal financial distress in 2013. The conference participants included Judge Christopher M. Klein who is overseeing the bankruptcy case of Stockton, California and Professor Juliet M. Moringiello, a previous ABI Resident Scholar.

One of the most enjoyable parts of my experience in this position were the frequent opportunities to record podcasts that were posted on the ABI website. An interesting article or book would be published and the ABI staff would contact the author and arrange a time for me to ask questions. You can find seven of my podcasts (along with many others) here. Together with many phone calls from members of the media about trends in bankruptcy filings or significant cases, I kept current with all the latest developments in the world of bankruptcy.

My time as Resident Scholar also included participating in panel presentations at the Annual Spring Meeting as well as the Bankruptcy Fundamental Program as part of the 15th Annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference. Both conferences were great opportunities to teach young lawyers and share time with leading bankruptcy judges and professionals.

My final major project was to organize and draft materials for an on-demand CLE program addressing the intersection between the bankruptcy concept of property of the estate and the common law doctrines relating to equitable interests in property. I recruited Andrew Kull, the reporter for the American Law Institute’s new Restatement (Third) Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, and together we recorded a 90-minute in-depth CLE program that should be a great benefit to the bankruptcy community.

This past semester has been an enriching personal and professional experience. I greatly enjoyed being part of an organization that has such a dedicated and loyal membership and leadership. I wish to thank Executive Director Sam Gerdano for his foresight and insight. It was an honor to contribute to ABI's mission and I am grateful to have been granted this opportunity.

Finally, I offer a warm welcome the next Resident Scholar, Professor Kara Bruce of the University of Toledo Law School.

C. Scott Pryor

Professor of Law

Regent University School of Law

Professor Susan E. Hauser, Resident Scholar, Fall 2012

Prof. Susan E. Hauser teaches civil procedure, bankruptcy and business associations at North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, N.C. She received the University of North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2013, and was named Professor of the Year by her students in 2011 and 2008. In the fall of 2012, Prof. Hauser served as ABI's Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar, and that October she received the American Bankruptcy Law Journal Editors' Prize and was elected to the American Bankruptcy Law Journal's Editorial Advisory Board in 2013 (she was an ABLJ Fellow in fall 2005). Prof. Hauser publishes and presents on the treatment of student loan debt in bankruptcy, predatory lending, bankruptcy procedure, and the intersection of constitutional law and bankruptcy law, and co-authored Graduating with Debt: Student Loans under the Bankruptcy Code (ABI, 2013). She is a member of the North Carolina State Bar and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina. Prior to practicing law, Prof. Hauser clerked for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge J. Rich Leonard and U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt, both of the Eastern District of North Carolina, then began her legal career as an attorney for Legal Aid in Robeson County, N.C. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Resident Scholar Letter

I had the privilege of serving as the Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence in the fall of 2012. My time at the ABI was one of the best experiences of my career, and I am genuinely honored to join the group of outstanding academics who have preceded me as Resident Scholars.

Like my predecessors, I served as a media liaison and handled press inquiries. My time with the ABI coincided with election season, however, and this added a distinct flavor to the media inquiries I faced. The ABI's educational mission makes the ABI a prime resource for reporters with questions about bankruptcy, and I quickly learned that almost any question posed by a reporter in the months leading up to a national election could have political overtones.

These interactions with the press gave me a front-row seat to political contests from around the country with unexpected connections to bankruptcy. In addition to press inquiries, I had the fun "currents events" job of developing Quick Poll questions for the ABI's website.

As the Resident Scholar, I had the opportunity to host three podcasts - two on commercial topics and a third consumer-oriented piece. Because my scholarship has a consumer focus, I found the opportunity to work with cutting edge commercial topics particularly rewarding. In the first podcast, I interviewed Professor Vidhan K. Goyal and Professor Wei Wang about their controversial paper "Provision of Management Incentives in Bankrupt Firms," which concludes that key employee retention plans do not benefit managers at the expense of creditors. Next, I had the opportunity to interview three of the authors of the ABI's new book Interrupted! Understanding Bankruptcy’s Effects on Manufacturing Supply Chains. The authors, John T. Gregg, Deborah L. Thorne, and Patrick E. Mears, are seasoned attorneys, and I enjoyed learning about the implications of their topic and speaking with them about lessons they have learned working on large bankruptcies within the auto industry and manufacturing sector. Finally, I hosted a podcast with Jason Iuliano, the author of "An Empirical Assessment of Student Loan Discharges and the Undue Hardship Standard." This well-timed article examines the incidence of § 523(a)(8) proceedings in bankruptcy, concluding that these actions are likelier to succeed than is generally thought and could productively be filed by a larger subset of bankruptcy debtors.
I also presented at three ABI conferences: the Midwest Nuts and Bolts program in Kansas City, the Chicago Consumer Bankruptcy Conference, and the Detroit Consumer Bankruptcy Conference. These presentations enabled me to work with judges, scholars, and leading attorneys from these areas, and gave me concentrated time to develop my interest in several of the covered topics. I will carry several of these presentation manuscripts forward and expand them into larger published works in the coming year. Finally, along with Alane Becket (ABI Board Member and Executive Editor of the ABI Journal), I had the privilege of editing a new ABI publication, Best of ABI 2012: The Year in Consumer Bankruptcy. This reference book collects the best material on consumer hot topics published in the ABI Journal or developed for one of the ABI's conferences during the prior year.

I would like to sincerely thank Sam Gerdano and the ABI staff for welcoming me into their offices for four months. Not only did I get to enjoy life in Alexandria, I was invited to go running on the Mt. Vernon Trail (thank you John Hartgen!), down the hall for birthday cakes, to dinner with ABI professionals at conferences, and - best of all - to the ABI's Christmas party! As a long-time member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, I enjoyed meeting the wonderful
people who work at the ABI. It was great fun to finally match faces to names I have known for years. Thank you for a great experience!

It was my great pleasure to serve as ABI's Resident Scholar during the fall of 2011. I am deeply honored to have been invited to follow in the footsteps of many of my academic heroes who previously served as Resident Scholar, and it was a real joy to meet the faces (and personalities) behind the names of the absolutely top-notch ABI staff. My activities ranged broadly during my semester stint in Alexandria, as I both continued the traditional tasks of the Resident Scholar position and added some new ones.

Susan E. Hauser

Professor David G. Epstein, Resident Scholar, Spring 2012

David G. Epstein is the George E. Allen Chair Professor of Law at the University of Richmond Law School in Richmond, Va., and the Spring 2003 and the Spring 2012 ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar-in-Residence. Previously, he practiced law with King & Spalding and Haynes and Boone, served as dean of two law schools and taught at a number of other law schools. Prof. Epstein has co-authored numerous casebooks and texts for law students, including a three-volume treatise on bankruptcy. He received his LL.M. from Harvard University.

Professor Jason Kilborn, Resident Scholar, Fall 2011

Jason J. Kilborn is a professor of law at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago and is ABI's fall 2011 Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar. He teaches bankruptcy, secured transactions and corporations, and is one of the nation's leading scholars on comparative law in consumer bankruptcy. He has written several pioneering articles and a book that examines developing consumer insolvency systems throughout Europe. He is also the lead scholar assisting The World Bank in an ongoing examination of legal regimes for the treatment of insolvency of natural persons. After graduating magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, Prof. Kilborn clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit before becoming an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York, and later joined the Washington, D.C., office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. He previously taught at Louisiana State University Law School and as a visiting professor at the University of Texas.

Resident Scholar Letter

It was my great pleasure to serve as ABI's Resident Scholar during the fall of 2011. I am deeply honored to have been invited to follow in the footsteps of many of my academic heroes who previously served as Resident Scholar, and it was a real joy to meet the faces (and personalities) behind the names of the absolutely top-notch ABI staff. My activities ranged broadly during my semester stint in Alexandria, as I both continued the traditional tasks of the Resident Scholar position and added some new ones.

As usual in the fall, a new Supreme Court October Term meant no new headline-grabbing opinions. Nonetheless, I did attend oral argument in a Supreme Court case involving the ability to mandate arbitration for consumer claims under the Credit Repair Organizations Act, and I conducted a podcast interview with former Resident Scholar and Georgia State law professor, Jack Williams, on his amicus brief in the most prominent bankruptcy case of the term (involving construction of section 1222 and whether capital gains taxes on post-petition farm sales in Chapter 12 are "incurred by the estate"). Another podcast interview offered me unique access to a conversation with Sir John Chadwick, a judge on the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts and the special tribunal set up to deal with issues associated with the financial distress of Dubai World. My final podcast profiled the so-called "control fraud" theory of UMKC economics and law professor Bill Black, especially the theory's implications for understanding the causes of and potential remedies for the mortgage meltdown.

Despite the lack of Supreme Court activity, media inquiries continued to be a staple source of my work, as questions rolled in from around the country on a range of diverse issues. The bankruptcy of solar manufacturing company Solyndra not long after receiving a large government-guaranteed loan attracted significant media attention, as did the surprising ebb of consumer filing volumes during the fall and the much anticipated Chapter 11 filing by the parent company of American Airlines. These conversations with reporters were among the most enjoyable moments of my term, as they offered an opportunity to both teach (many of the reporters had never covered business or bankruptcy issues specifically before) and to learn (the reporters had often collected hard-to-find intelligence about companies and trends).

Even before the official start of my term, I was recruited to help with an exciting new ABI publication, "Best of ABI 2011: The Year in Consumer Bankruptcy. "Along with co-editor and ABI Board member, Alane Becket, I surveyed the consumer-oriented contents of the ABI Journal for all of 2011 (and Alane surveyed the educational materials from the many ABI conferences in 2011), and we selected the best contributions, grouping them into several "hot topic" categories. A companion volume did the same for Business Bankruptcy. Another "hot topic"-related task involved the "quick poll" questions for the ABI website. To keep this fun tradition going, I drafted nearly two dozen poll questions, which began to appear on the site already near the end of my term.

Another unique publication opportunity involved an update of the Federal Judicial Center's timeline of the evolution of US Bankruptcy Law. The original timeline extended from the 1800s to 2006. In anticipation of ABI's 30th Anniversary in February 2012, I was asked to update the timeline for the five additional years to 2011, to include prominent filing-volume data, important statutory developments (Dodd-Frank's Orderly Liquidation Authority), Supreme Court precedent (Milavetz v. US, Hamilton v. Lanning, Random v. FIA Card Services), and landmark reorganization cases (Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns, General Motors, Chrysler, WaMu, CIT Group, Blockbuster, and Borders).

One of ABI's greatest strengths is its educational programming, and I was involved in four traditional programs, as well as an exceptional one-time special event. Early in the fall, I attended the Bankruptcy 2011: Views from the Bench program at Georgetown University. Later, I attended the annual Chicago Consumer Bankruptcy Conference, and I delivered the key note luncheon address at the Detroit Consumer Bankruptcy Conference. I spoke on the worldwide influence of US consumer bankruptcy policy and the ways in which non-US consumer insolvency systems have begun to generate ideas that we should consider adopting. Near the end of my term, I coordinated and moderated a panel on fraud in consumer bankruptcy cases at the 23rd Annual Winter Leadership Conference, held this year in La Quinta, California.

The other, extraordinary program involved a partnership between ABI and the World Bank, and I turned out to represent a serendipitous bridge between the two partners. Earlier in the year, I had been appointed to chair a drafting group for a World Bank project on the insolvency of natural persons. As chair of the drafting group, I worked with the World Bank Legal Vice Presidency to organize a two-day conference for our presentation of the draft document to a broader Working Group. This Working Group meeting was scheduled to coincide with the conclusion of the World Bank's annual Legal Forum, a legal education program for lawyers associated with the Bretton Woods institutions. Coincidentally, the ABI had agreed to offer a morning program as part of the Legal Forum immediately before the Working Group meeting, so I was assigned the dual tasks of organizing the ABI morning educational program (including an introduction to the World Bank's natural person insolvency project, which I presented), as well as coordinating the following Working Group meeting for the World Bank. My head was quite warm wearing the two different hats, and both aspects of the conference were resounding successes.

I extend my deepest sincere thanks to Executive Director Sam Gerdano for inviting me to serve as Resident Scholar. It was a uniquely enriching and enjoyable opportunity to work with Sam, Deputy Executive Director Amy Quackenboss, Public Affairs Manager John Hartgen, Media Technology Specialist Matt Lukban, and all the other truly outstanding people in the ABI office. I will miss my interaction with them, but I will take with me a wealth of wonderful memories and new insights gained during my several months in Alexandria. All service should be this much fun!

Prof. Jason Kilborn

John Marshall Law School (Chicago)

Professor Jean Braucher, Resident Scholar, Spring 2011

Prof. Jean Braucher is ABI's scholar in residence for spring 2011 and the Roger C. Henderson Professor of Law at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she teaches bankruptcy, commercial law and contracts. She has been chair twice of the Section on Creditors' and Debtors' Rights of the Association of American Law Schools. In addition, Prof. Braucher has conducted two empirical studies concerning consumer bankruptcy, one on the impact of debtor education in bankruptcy, funded by ABI, and another on local legal culture in the counseling practices of consumer debtors' lawyers. A frequent lecturer, she is also the author of numerous law review articles, including a recent article on mortgage modification. Prof. Braucher has been active in law reform work in commercial law as a member of the American Bar Association and the American Law Institute. She has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the ABI Law Review and is a peer reviewer for the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. She has also been a visiting professor at Cornell Law School, the University of Texas School of Law, Boston College School of Law and the Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.

Professor Laura Beth Bartell, Resident Scholar, Fall 2010

Laura B. Bartell is a Professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan, where she teaches Bankruptcy, Secured Transactions and Property. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School (where she served on the Harvard Law Review), she clerked for The Hon. Alvin B. Rubin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans before beginning practice in New York City. She was a partner at Shearman & Sterling before she began teaching. Laura is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation, and serves on the Boards of the American Board of Certification and the Institute of Continuing Legal Education.

Resident Scholar Letter

As the 17th resident scholar for the American Bankruptcy Institute during the fall semester 2010, on sabbatical from my teaching duties at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, I was involved in all aspects of the ABI's activities.

Publications

I edited new editions of three of the ABI publications, ABI's Bankruptcy Appeals Manual: Winning Your Bankruptcy Appeal (written by Samuel R. Maizel and Jessica D. Gabel); Getting Paid: Retention and Compensation in Bankruptcy Cases - A Guide for Non-attorney Professionals and the Attorneys Who Represent Them (written by C.R. "Chip" Bowles, Jr.); and When Worlds Collide: Bankruptcy and its Impact on Domestic Relations and Family Law (written by Michaela M. White, Marianne B. Culhane and Nathalie Martin).

Programs

I was privileged to attend three programs during my tenure, the Bankruptcy 2010: Views from the Bench program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; the Detroit Consumer Bankruptcy Conference in Sterling Heights, Michigan; and the 22nd Annual Winter Leadership Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. In addition, I reviewed the materials and biographical information for all other programs during fall of 2010, driving communications director Carolyn Kanon and her assistant Traci Van Buren crazy with my proofreading suggestions. Although I was not asked to speak on any of the conferences, I tried to make myself useful in other ways, from assisting with registration to helping load up the truck with boxes of materials.

Media

An important part of the job for an ABI resident scholar is fielding questions from reporters about bankruptcy topics. Because the fall is not the time of year when the Supreme Court decides bankruptcy cases, most of the questions I received involved the most recently-released quarterly bankruptcy statistics. Those calling included reporters from national news services and local papers, from all around the country.

Website

The ABI's website, at www.abi.org, provides a broad range of resources to ABI members. I wrote a headline on the grant of certiorari in Stern v. Marshall immediately sent to all ABI members. I also prepared descriptions of the bankruptcy implications of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and of S. 3675 (the proposed Small Business Jobs Preservation Act), which were both posted on the website and published in the ABI Journal under "Legislative Highlights."

When the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Ransom v. FIA Card Services, N.A., I provided a summary of the arguments and my analysis of the likely outcome. Another brief article, published in the ABI Journal, summarized the amicus brief filed on behalf of a group of 13 law professors (including me) by Professor Richard Lieb and the LL.M. bankruptcy students at St. John's University School of Law, in Stern v. Marshall.

The website launched a new service called "Volo", a Latin word for speed, or more rapidly. The Volo Project provides ABI members with summaries of new appellate bankruptcy opinions, prepared by editors for each circuit and posted at the Volo website within 24 hours after the opinion is released. I have become an editor for the Sixth Circuit (my own circuit) and summarized a number of decisions in that circuit and in others for which no other editor had volunteered on a timely basis (the so-called "orphan" opinions).

I also provided comments to Karim Guirguis, IT director, with respect to the new interactive Bankruptcy Code and Bankruptcy Rules on the website, and came up with some suggested Quick Poll questions for that section of the website.

Podcasts

I conducted four podcasts during my time at the ABI, with the able assistance of media technology specialist Matthew Lukban. In the first, I interviewed Professor Katherine Porter and Professor Deborah Thorne on their recent jointly-authored legal studies research paper on Debtors' Assessments of Bankruptcy Financial Education. Next, I spoke with Andy Winchell, an ABI member, and a restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy attorney for commercial and consumer clients at the Law Offices of Andy Winchell in Summit, New Jersey, on the current foreclosure crisis. My third podcast was with a former ABI resident scholar, Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who discussed his soon-to-be-published book on the Dodd-Frank Act. Finally, I interviewed Professor Richard Lieb of St. John's University Law School about the LL.M. program in bankruptcy there, and his recently-filed amicus brief in Stern v. Marshall.

Media Teleconferences 

ABI held two media teleconferences during the fall, organized with great skill and insight by Public Affairs Manager John Hartgen, both of which I moderated. The first was a look at consumer and business bankruptcy on the fifth anniversary of BAPCPA. The second examined trends in business bankruptcy filings at the end of 2010, looking forward to 2011.

My thanks to Sam Gerdano for giving me the opportunity to serve as ABI resident scholar and to Kathy Sheehan for making all the arrangements for my housing. I particularly enjoyed my interactions with the superb ABI staff, both professionally and at birthday lunches and baby showers and rides to the airport. They are a wonderful and talented group of people, and it was my pleasure to join them for these few months.

I will miss you all!

Laura Beth Bartell

Professor Juliet Moringiello, Resident Scholar, Spring 2010

Prof. Juliet M. Moringiello is a professor at Widener University School of Law in Harrisburg, Pa., where she teaches bankruptcy, commercial law, cyberspace law and property. She is ABI's Spring 2010 Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar and she writes in the areas of bankruptcy and electronic commerce, and is a frequent speaker on those topics. Prof. Moringiello currently serves as chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Uniform Commercial Code Committee, and she is a member of the Editorial Boards of Business Law Today and the ABI Law Review. She is also an elected member of the American Law Institute. She is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars. Prof. Moringiello received her B.S.F.S from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and her LL.M. from Temple University School of Law.

Resident Scholar Letter

I had the pleasure of serving as Resident Scholar during the Spring Semester of 2010. I am honored to have followed in the footsteps of the wonderful scholars who preceded me, and like them, I found my semester at the ABI's offices to be a wonderful professional experience.

The first half of 2010 was a busy time at the ABI. During my term as Resident Scholar, the U.S.Supreme Court issued opinions in U.S. v Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, United Student Aid Funds v. Espinosa, Hamilton v. Lanning, and Schwab v. Reilly. I provided written analysis of each of these opinions and also moderated media teleconferences after each opinion was released. These teleconferences provided useful information to the media about these opinions and gave me the opportunity to discuss these opinions with some wonderful and knowledgeable ABI members.

One of the jobs of the Resident Scholar is to respond to media inquiries. During my term, the ABI received many inquiries regarding municipal bankruptcy. With the help of John Hartgen, I informed myself on this interesting topic, spoke to several newspapers about it, and was interviewed on C-Span and on WITF, the public television station in Harrisburg, PA. I also hosted an ABI podcast interview with the authors of the ABI's new publication, Municipalities in Peril: The ABI Guide to Chapter 9. As I write this, Harrisburg (the city in which I work) is contemplating a Chapter 9 filing, so I expect that the knowledge I gained at the ABI will provide me with media opportunities for months to come. The negotiations leading up to the recently passed Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act also provided many opportunities to speak with the press.

Hosting podcast interviews was a terrific way to provide ABI members with useful information about interesting topics. In addition to the Chapter 9 podcast, I conducted podcast interviews with Prof. Robert Lawless of the University of Illinois (on small business financial distress), Prof. Stephen Lubben of Seton Hall University (on the use of Chapter 11 to deal with the financial distress of financial firms) and Prof. Melissa Jacoby of the University of North Carolina (on reforming small business bankruptcy).

Another job of the Resident Scholar is to help with ABI publications. I wrote an update of Bankruptcy Overview: Issues, Law and Policy, earlier editions of which were written by my predecessor Resident Scholars Margaret Howard and Jack Ayer. I also worked with several members of the ABI staff to update the Consumer Center of the ABI website.

As Resident Scholar, I attended and participated in three ABI conferences: the Annual Spring Meeting at National Harbor, MD, the Northeast Conference in Brewster, MA, and the Southeast Conference at Amelia Island, FL. I also had the privilege of presenting at two Nuts & Bolts sessions, one at the Annual Spring Meeting and one in New York.

Many thanks to Sam Gerdano for giving me the opportunity to serve as Resident Scholar. Working with Sam, Felicia Turner and everyone else at the ABI was a real pleasure and my experience at the ABI will certainly enhance both my bankruptcy teaching and scholarship. I highly recommend the experience to other bankruptcy professors.

Professor Adam J. Levitin, Resident Scholar, Fall 2009

Prof. Adam J. Levitin teaches bankruptcy and commercial law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., and served as ABI's Robert M. Zinman ABI Resident Scholar for the Fall 2009 semester. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, he practiced in the Business Finance & Restructuring Department of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York. Prof. Levitin has also served as special counsel for mortgage affairs for the Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and as law clerk to the Hon. Jane Richards Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His research focuses on financial institutions' role in the consumer and business credit economy, including credit card regulation, mortgage lending, identity theft, DIP financing and bankruptcy claims trading. Prof. Levitin has testified before Congress repeatedly on mortgage and credit card regulatory issues and frequently appears in the national media. He received his A.B. from Harvard College, his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his M.Phil. and A.M. from Columbia University, all with honors.

Professor Jack F. Williams, Resident Scholar, 2008-2009

Prof. Jack F. Williams of the Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta is serving throughout 2008 as ABI's Robert M. Zinman ABI Resident Scholar. Prof. Williams is the first academic to serve twice in the role; he was the inaugural ABI Resident Scholar when the ABI Endowment Fund created the program in 2001. Prof. Williams teaches at Georgia State University College of Law, where he instructs an assortment of courses, including advanced bankruptcy seminar, bankruptcy and insolvency taxation, business bankruptcy, commercial law (Lending and Payment Systems) and federal, state and local income taxation. A member of Georgia State's faculty since 1991, he has been selected as one of the top 10 bankruptcy academics and one of the top 10 bankruptcy accounting and taxation specialists in the United States. He also teaches at the New York Law School LL.M. Program in taxation, the New York University School of Law Continuing Professional Education Program for the Internal Revenue Service, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Prof. Williams has previously taught at the University of Georgia School of Law, St. John's University School of Law in the LL.M. Program and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the ABI Law Review and is a director for BDO Seidman, LLP (New York). Prof. Williams also serves as the resident scholar of the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors and as a member of the academic board of the Journal of Corporate Renewal, and he is an instructor with the National Association of Credit Managers. Prof. Williams has held positions as the dean of faculty for the American Board of Certification, chairman of the Tax Advisory Committee for the National Bankruptcy Review Commission and judicial law clerk for Hon. William J. Holloway (Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit).

Professor Mark S. Scarberry, Resident Scholar, Fall 2007

Mark S. Scarberry is a professor at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, Calif., where he teaches bankruptcy, commercial law, remedies and constitutional law. Prof. Scarberry was an associate in the Los Angeles office of Jones Day before joining Pepperdine in 1982. He is a coauthor of the Thomson/West chapter 11 casebook Scarberry, Klee, Newton & Nickles, Business Reorganization in Bankruptcy: Cases & Materials (3d ed. 2006), with a fourth edition coming out soon. Prof. Scarberry is a former ABI Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar (fall 2007) and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December 2007 on bankruptcy legislation designed to respond to the mortgage crisis, subsequently helping to organize the Pepperdine Law Review's 2009 symposium on the mortgage crisis. He has also prepared materials used to train lawyers to provide pro bono consumer bankruptcy services as well as materials for ABI's consumer bankruptcy webinars. Prof. Scarberry has participated in bankruptcy training programs in China and Romania, and was program coordinator, participant and presenter for the Global Judges Forum—Commercial Enforcement and Insolvency Systems, held in 2003 at Pepperdine, which was cosponsored by the World Bank and attended by more than 100 judges from 60 countries. Prof. Scarberry received his A.B. magna cum laude from Caltech and Occidental College and his J.D. in 1978 from UCLA Law School, where he graduated first in his class.

Resident Scholar Letter

The subprime mortgage crisis hit just as I started my service during the fall of 2007 as the thirteenth Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence. As a result, I spent much of my time keeping track of proposed legislation in the Congress - both legislation intended to deal with foreclosures and legislation intended to deal with mortgage origination practices - and responding to numerous related media requests.

The bills that relate to mortgage origination include H.R. 3913, which would enact the 'Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007' ('MRAPLA'). My summary of MRAPLA for the ABI Legislation Committee Newsletter can be found here.

The foreclosure-related bills would allow modification of home mortgages in chapter 13 to varying degrees under various circumstances. A chart that I prepared for the ABI web page comparing the bills received substantial attention and was reprinted in the Spring 2008 N.Y. Real Property Law Journal. Near the end of my service as scholar in residence I had the privilege of testifying on those bills before the Senate Judiciary Committee (written testimony and hearing webcast available here). My written responses to follow-up written questions from the Senators should appear on the committee's web page shortly. All of this led to my being asked to be a luncheon speaker at the January, 2008 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) annual meeting (for the Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services). In addition, I will be presenting a paper on these issues (particularly the proposed home mortgage strip down in chapter 13) at the AALS Annual Meeting in San Diego in January, 2009 (at the meeting of the Section on Creditors' and Debtors' Rights). I am also an organizer for the Pepperdine Law Review symposium to be held on April 17, 2009 (at the law school in Malibu) entitled Bringing Down the Curtain on the Current Mortgage Crisis and Preventing a Return Engagement.

The new ABI Consumer Webinar series premiered while I was the scholar in residence. I had the opportunity to write the materials for the first two webinars and grew to love the 2005 BAPCPA even less than previously.

Much of the rest of my time was spent analyzing the Supreme Court's decision in Travelers Casualty & Insurance Co. of America v. Pacific Gas & Electric, 127 S. Ct. 1199 (2007) and writing a law review article for the ABI Law Review: Interpreting Bankruptcy Code Sections 502 and 506: Post-Petition Attorneys' Fees in a Post-Travelers World, 15 ABI L. Rev. 611 (2007) (download available on SSRN here). As a result, on Sept. 5, 2008 I will be debating the highly-successful Supreme Court advocate G. Eric Brunstad (who won the Travelers case) at the 16th Annual Southwest Bankruptcy Conference in Las Vegas.

I was also asked to give the luncheon speech at the 16th Annual Bankruptcy Battleground West in Santa Monica, California, in February, 2008, shortly after my stint as scholar in residence ended. The speech, which was graciously received by the ABI members in attendance, was entitled Statutory Interpretation and the Rule of Law.

I want to thank the ABI and its generous members for giving me the opportunity to serve as your scholar in residence. It was a great experience working with Sam Gerdano, Felicia Turner, and the wonderful staff at ABI. Everyone was gracious. I hesitate to single out any particular staff member, but the great media interest stirred up by the subprime crisis meant that I spent a lot of time working with John Hartgen, ABI's Public Affairs Manager. I want to thank him particularly for his welcoming attitude, great professionalism, and willingness to share his insights into how to deal with the media. It was also a treat to spend a semester in the DC area, with all that it offers. (Family trips to the caverns in the Shenandoah Valley, to Gettysburg, and to Amish country were highlights.)

Again, to the ABI and its generous members, to Sam, to Felicia, and to the ABI staff, thank you!

Mark S. Scarberry

Professor Lois Lupica, Resident Scholar, Spring 2007

Prof. Lois R. Lupica is the Maine Law Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland, where she teaches bankruptcy, secured transactions, commercial and consumer arbitration, and professional responsibility. Prior to becoming a professor in 1995, she practiced law at both Arnold & Porter LLP and White & Case LLP in New York. She is actively involved in numerous professional and academic organizations. A Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, Prof. Lupica is on the advisory board for the ABI Law Review as well as for The Journal of Bankruptcy Law & Practice, and she was ABI's spring 2007 resident scholar. She was appointed as the first Class of 1973/Glassman Faculty Research Scholar at Maine Law, was awarded the Faculty Senate Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 2004 and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Fellowship in 2001, and received an honorable mention for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism, sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism and the Conference of Chief Justices in 2005. She has served as dean of faculty and as a member of the Executive Board of the American Board of Certification, and she has been a co-coach and faculty advisor for the Duberstein Moot Court Competition in New York since 2005. Prof. Lupica served as the reporter for the Maine Task Force on Ethics 2000 from 2005-08. She is currently the principal investigator of a National Study of the Consumer Bankruptcy System, funded by ABI and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. She received her B.S. in consumer economics and housing from Cornell University and her J.D. magna cum laude from Boston University School of Law.

Resident Scholar Letter

During the Spring 2007 semester, I followed in the footsteps of many of my friends and colleagues, serving as the twelfth ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence. The experience as Resident Scholar was interesting, educational, and lots of fun. I had the pleasure of getting to know the dedicated, talented and oft-time irreverent ABI staff - both in and out of the office. This is a group of people who take their jobs, their softball and their next meal very seriously. I do hope the future Resident Scholars make at least as vital a contribution to the team, "Going for Broke" as I did this semester (didn't quite make it to bat, but I did walk away with a jersey). I shall also miss the regular in-house e-mails announcing the presence of chocolate cake, or "goodies from Poland" in the kitchen. My law school should take a page from their book . . .

As was the case with my predecessors, my job responsibilities varied from week to week, but rarely a day went by when I didn't speak to members of the media about a recent bankruptcy related development, a new bankruptcy case, or about an economic, sociological or political trend and its impact on bankruptcy filings. I appreciated the professionalism of the reporters, and their interest in "getting it right," even when the issue being discussed was complex and esoteric. On behalf of ABI, I was quoted in scores of stories over the past months.

I also had the opportunity to work with the publications' staff and ABI authors on a variety of editing projects. I would like to express my thanks to the dedicated authors who tolerated my editorial \"suggestions\" with good grace and a sense of humor. I also put my rusty graphics skills to work on updating the Nuts and Bolts conference materials and slides.

I spent some time consulting with the IT staff about a variety of substantive Website improvements and conducted peer reviews of two empirical studies of new BAPCPA provisions. Now that the issue of consumer over-indebtedness garnered the attention of legislators, a series of Congressional Hearings on credit card and other fringe banking practices and their impact on consumers were held. I attended a number of these hearings and wrote articles for the electronic ABI Update newsletter on this issue and on a myriad of other current cases and developments. I also crafted many of the recent Quick Poll questions.

The Podcast Project (brainchild of ABI staffer Karim Guirguis) was one of my favorite projects this term. I endeavored to develop an "author series," interviewing a variety of scholars and experts whose work I admired. I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Robert Manning, (Credit Card Nation), Anya Kamenetz (Generation Debt), Professor Thomas Ward (Intellectual Property in Commerce) and Dr. Karen Gross (Failure and Forgiveness), among others. It was not only fascinating to explore a variety of issues with some very smart and thoughtful people, it also gave me a renewed respect for the skills Terri Gross, and others journalists like her, bring to their jobs.

I appreciated the opportunity as Resident Scholar to meet and work with a broad range of ABI members from around the country. I attended and/or spoke at three ABI conferences: The Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Conference, and the Annual Spring Meeting, Bankruptcy Fundamentals: Nuts & Bolts for New and Young Practitioners and the New York City Nuts and Bolts program. At these conferences, I had the pleasure and the privilege to share conversations, and the podium with some very impressive members of the bankruptcy bench and bar. I also attended the quarter-final, semi-final and final Conrad R. Duberstein Moot Court Competition arguments and Banquet. It was both gratifying and humbling to see such excellence in oral advocacy from so many law students.

Before my tenure as Resident Scholar began, I committed to teach a class at my law school. I designed a course called "Hot Topics in Bankruptcy," with the ABI Journal as the assigned "text." In order to give the students access to a variety of bankruptcy-related resources, a further requirement of enrollment was a membership in ABI. My experiences as ABI's Resident Scholar enabled me to bring a very practical and current dimension to the classroom. The students deemed the course to be a success.

This past semester has been an enriching personal and professional experience for me. It has been heartening to be a part of an organization that has such a dedicated and loyal membership. I extend my admiration and thanks to Executive Director Sam Gerdano for overseeing such a successful enterprise. As Resident Scholar, it was an honor to make even a small contribution to ABI's mission and I am grateful to have been granted this opportunity.
I offer a warm welcome the next Resident Scholar, Professor Mark S. Scarberry of Pepperdine University School of Law.

Lois R. Lupica

Professor of Law

University of Maine School of Law

Professor David Skeel, Resident Scholar, Summer & Fall, 2006

Prof. David A. Skeel is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia. He is the author of Icarus in the Boardroom: The Fundamental Flaws in Corporate America and Where They Came From (Oxford University Press, 2005); Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (Princeton University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on bankruptcy, corporate law, Christianity and law among other topics. His recently co-authored articles include "Assessing the Chrysler Bankruptcy," Michigan Law Review (forthcoming in 2010) and "Bankruptcy or Bailouts?," Journal of Corporation Law (forthcoming in 2010). Professor Skeel has also written commentaries for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and other publications.

Resident Scholar Letter

I had the privilege of serving as ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence in the summer and early fall of 2006. My principal activities consisted of responding to media inquiries, writing for ABI periodicals, editing an ABItreatise, taping podcast interviews with prominent figures in the bankruptcy world, and writing materials for and making presentations at ABI conferences.

Media

My tenure as Resident Scholar began a little over six months after the full implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 ("BAPCPA") on October 17, 2005. As a result, I did not receive nearly so many media inquiries as Nathalie Martin, the silver tongued scholar who served as Resident Scholar when BAPCPA first went into effect, but I nevertheless received numerous inquiries from reporters and was quoted in a number of different newspapers. I also appeared on cable television- a segment of the Pennsylvania legal talk show Law Journal Television hosted by Christopher Naughton. The TV show, like a large percentage of the media inquiries, concerned the impact of BAPCPA.

Writing and Editing

In addition to fielding media inquiries, I also wrote short commentary pieces on a variety of topics, including an article on the Marrama v. Citizens Bank case (the Supreme Court case concerning a debtor's claim that he had an absolute right to convert from chapter 7 to chapter 13) for ABIJournal; a commentary for ABI/Dow Jones on the increasing use by corporate debtors of state law alternatives to chapter 11, and several short pieces for the Bankruptcy Update newsletter on ABI's website.

My principal editing (really, commenting) project was spending many pleasant hours reading the second edition of Jack Ayer and Michael Bernstein's terrific treatise Bankruptcy in Practice and offering a number of minor comments and suggestions.

ABIConferences

I spoke at and attended two ABIRegional conferences in the summer of 2006. At the Northeast Bankruptcy Conference in Newport, Rhode Island, I spoke with Judges Feeney and Queenan about the new value exception to absolute priority on the "Dockside Chat" panel. At the Central States Bankruptcy Workshop in Traverse City, Michigan, I spoke on a plenary panel called "How Reformed is the Reformation?" about the effects of BAPCPA.
In October, I attended the Bankruptcy 2006: Views from the Bench at Georgetown Law Center on the first year of BAPCPA. I also edited some of the introductory material used by panel moderators in their initial remarks.

ABI Podcasts

Perhaps my favorite responsibility of all was interviewing prominent bankruptcy figures as part of the ABI's podcast series. During my tenure (and after), I conducted podcast interviews with Bill Schorling, Harvey Miller, Judge Thomas Ambro, Judge Marjorie Rendell, Henry Sommer, Judge Bruce Markell, Nell Hennessy, Eric Brunstad, Martin Bienenstock, and Don Bernstein.

David A. Skeel, Jr.

S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Professor Jack D. Ayer, Resident Scholar, Spring 2006

Jack D. Ayer, Professor of Law Emeritus-at the University if California at Davis, who was a bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles-and counsel to the LA firm of Stutman, Treister & Glatt, in its day the premier West Coast business bankruptcy boutique. Prof. Ayer also taught at Stanford, Penn, Texas, NYU and Cardozo. At ABI he initiated the program of bankruptcy podcasts and finished a second edition of 'Bankruptcy in Practice' (with Michael J Bernstein). Professor wrote 50-odd academic articles, several on the implications for bankruptcy practice of modern finance theory.

Resident Scholar Letter

My most satisfying initiative as resident scholar at ABI was to conceive the format for the ABIPodcasts, and to record the first 10 interviews. I think the podcasts are a great addition to the overall package of information that ABI provides to members and the public. The podcasts were an enjoyable exercise for me and continue to be as both my successors, David Skeel and Lois Lupica - and ABI Executive Director Sam Gerdano - have proceeded with furthering the ABI Podcast program. 

I also had the privilege of revising the Bankruptcy Overview, which ABI keeps in print for Congressional staffers, journalists and the like. I worked with an earlier version ably assembled by my predecessor, Margaret Howard (Resident Scholar Spring 2002), and others, but made obsolete by Congress with the adoption of BAPCPA in 2005.

Additionally, I was able to work on a new edition of "The Orange Book" Bankruptcy in Practice, an introduction to business bankruptcy for lawyers who didn't take the course in law school (we find it also sells to accountants, investment bankers, turnaround managers, and even some law students), once again with my co-author Michael J. Bernstein.

Fielding requests from the media directed from ABI also provided a challenge as the questions ran the gamut of bankruptcy and legal issues. Questions from trade, regional and national media ranged from general analysis on bankruptcy trends to clarifications on specific areas of the Bankruptcy Code.

Jack D. Ayer

Professor of Law

University of California - Davis

Professor Nathalie Martin, Resident Scholar, Fall 2005

Nathalie Martin is the Frederick M. Hart Chair in Consumer and Clinical Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law, where she teaches contracts, bankruptcy, the Uniform Commercial Code, and a professional development class for first-year students. She joined the UNM law faculty in 1998 after practicing Chapter 11 reorganization law for a decade in Boston and Philadelphia. Her research focuses on consumer law and bankruptcy, particularly high-cost loans, such as payday, title, and installment loans. She is also involved in the Mindfulness in Law movement. Her high-cost loan projects include several empirical studies funded by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, including one that funded curbside interviews of payday loan customers and an ongoing study of the credit habits of undocumented New Mexicans. Her works have been cited by the New Mexico Supreme Court as well as the United
States Supreme Court. 

She is a regular blogger at Credit Slips, the nation's leading blog on debt and credit issues. She also is a former resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute. In that capacity, she has appeared on CNN, ABC, CNBC and other television networks. She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and many other newspapers.

Resident Scholar Letter

This report was written on my last day as the Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar of the American Bankruptcy Institute, an impressive title with an equally impressive job description, namely to "do what needs to be done". My job this Fall consisted primarily of speaking to the media and at conferences, and writing and editing various ABI publications. My term coincided with the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 ("BAPCA") on October 17, 2005. This made the term busy, particularly in the lead-up to October 17.

Media

Approximately 60% of my time during the Fall of 2005 was spent responding to inquiries from the media. Of that time the vast majority was spent talking to reporters from various print medium, such as newspapers, magazines, and the internet. I estimate that I have spoken with between 100 and 120 reporters, some several times. I always appreciated it when reporters like Terry Brennan from The Deal read back what they planed to say to avoid misquotes. In total, I was quoted in about 80 different sources, including the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and many others, including German and Italian publications.
We also held a satellite media television tour on October 14, 2005, arranged by our skilled media expert Lissa Hurwitz, just before the new bankruptcy law went into effect. In that "tour," John Penn (ABI President extraordinaire), Sam Gerdano (ABI Executive Director), and I appeared on over 20 local and national TV shows. At various times, I also appeared on CNN, ABC, CNBC, and the Philadelphia legal talk show Law Journal Television hosted by Christopher Naughton. John Penn and I also hosted an on-line chat at the Washington Post, where we responded to live written questions from the audience about bankruptcy reform.

Writing

On the written side of the equation, I (along with wonderful ABI members James Bone, Professor Charles Shafer, Joan Allyn Kodish, and Alane Beckett), restructured and updated the Consumer Education Page of our web site to reflect the changes to the law. I also put the finishing touches on a book written with my husband Stewart Paley entitled The New Bankruptcy Code and You, a John Wiley Publication.

I helped review and edit various ABI books and publications to reflect the new law, including a book about domestic relations and bankruptcy entitled When Worlds Collide: Bankruptcy and Its impact on Domestic Relations and Family Law, authored originally by Professor and Dean Peter Alexander and Bankruptcy Judge Judith Fitzgerald, and restructured and rewritten to reflect the new changes in the law by Professors Michaela White and Marianne Culhane.
I also wrote and edited pieces for our electronic Update newsletter, including a piece on Judge Alito and bankruptcy, and for the ABI Journal, including a piece about the examiner's report in the Fibermark case.

Speaking

I attended and /or presented papers at four conferences this semester, the ABI Southwest Regional Conference in Las Vegas, a Bankruptcy Conference sponsored by the Central California Bar Association in Fresno, California, the ABI Winter Leadership Conference n Palm Desert, and a conference for marital judges and magistrates in Columbus, sponsored by the State Judicial College of Ohio.

Overall, this has been a busy but highly rewarding experience, and a highlight of my career so far. I thank the entire ABI staff, one of the friendliest and most competent groups with which I have ever had the pleasure to work. I will really miss being part of this group. I especially thank Sam Gerdano for making this such a meaningful and worthwhile experience.

Nathalie Martin

Professor Jeff Morris, Resident Scholar, Spring 2005

Jeffrey Morris taught at the School of Law since 1981 while remaining active in the area of bankruptcy law. He is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an elite group of lawyers, judges, and professors that addresses significant issues of bankruptcy, policy, and law. Professor Morris has twice testified before congressional committees on behalf of the group.

A founding member of the American Bankruptcy Law Forum, he also is a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. Professor Morris has also served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law. In 1999 he was appointed by Chief Justice Rhenquist as the reporter to the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules, and he served in that position until 2008. Professor Morris notes that serving as the reporter was “a great opportunity to work with excellent judges and lawyers on matters that affect millions of cases each year.”

He has been of counsel to Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur for more than 10 years. He served a three-year term as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. Professor Morris was the Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence at the American Bankruptcy Institute for the Spring 2005 Semester. In 2008 he was the Southeastern Bankruptcy Law Institute Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Georgia State University College of Law. He regularly lectures throughout the country to lawyers and judges on matters of bankruptcy and commercial law.

Professor Edward Janger, Resident Scholar, Fall 2004

Prof. Edward Janger is the David M. Barse Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School in New York, which he joined in 1998 after teaching at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and the Ohio State University College of Law. Prof. Janger served as the ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar-in-Residence in fall 2004, and he has served as the Anne Urowsky Visiting Professor at Yale Law School, the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Prior to teaching, he practiced as an associate with the firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., specializing in bankruptcy and litigation, and was a law clerk to Hon. Irving L. Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Prof. Janger has published in the areas of bankruptcy law, commercial law and data privacy, and his recent scholarship has appeared in the Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and Texas International Law Journal. He is a past-chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Commercial and Consumer Law, and is a member of the American Law Institute. He also served as consultant to the Business Bankruptcy Subcommittee of the Federal Bankruptcy Rules Advisory Committee, and is a member of the board of directors of the Coalition for Debtor Education. Prof. Janger received his B.A. from Yale College and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Hon. Roger M. Whelan, Resident Scholar, Spring 2004

Regularly retained as expert witness and mediator in bankruptcy and other matters. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for District of Columbia, 1972-1983. Designated by Chief Justice Warren Burger to serve on United States Bankruptcy Court for District of Maryland, 1981 - 1982. Member, American Bankruptcy Institute. Served as Resident Scholar on American Bankruptcy Institute's Board and Executive Committee, 2004. Distinguished Lecturer for Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America. Served as Master of Walter Chandler American Inns of Court, emeritus status.

Professor Marianne Culhane, Resident Scholar, Fall 2003

Marianne Culhane is Dean and Professor at Creighton University School of Law School She received her Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, from Carleton College, and her Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Iowa, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and the recipient of the Iowa Bar Award of Merit. She joined the Creighton faculty after serving as law clerk to Judge Donald P. Lay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and practicing law in Omaha. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Iowa Law School Foundation and the Board of Directors of the Omaha Legal Aid Society. She has taught Banking Law, Debtor-Creditor Relations, Secured Transactions, and Selected Commercial Topics. Dean Culhane and Professor Michaela White were the principal investigators for two nationwide empirical research projects on means-testing and reaffirmation in bankruptcy, with grants from the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and the Nebraska State Bar Association. In 2003, she was the ABI’s Resident Scholar and in 2008, was the Southeastern Bankruptcy Institute Visiting Scholar at Georgia State College of Law. She became Dean of the Law School on January 1, 2010 and had previously served as Interim Dean from July 2007 to June 2008.

Resident Scholar Letter

I had the great honor to serve as the fifth ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar in Residence from July through December 2003 at ABI's offices in lovely Alexandria, Va., on the banks of the Potomac. My duties included writing for ABI periodicals, updating ABI publications, writing materials for and making presentations at conferences, coordinating specialized bankruptcy training for federal employees, doing interviews for television, radio and newspapers, answering requests for information from ABI members and the general public, as well as analyzing proposed legislation for congressional committees.

During my tenure at ABI, I completed the following tasks:

  • Wrote monthly articles for the ABI Journal on topics such as the bankruptcy-related Supreme Court cases to be heard in 2003-04, and pending legislation, particularly on pension issues.
  • Reviewed and updated the text of ABI's Bankruptcy Issues for State Trial Court Judges. The new second edition was published in November.
  • Planned, recruited speakers, prepared materials for and spoke at ABI's specialized bankruptcy training session for the USDA's Perishable Agricultural Commodities (PACA) Unit. I am grateful to ABI members Jordan Kroop, Rebecca Roof and Nancy Peterman, experienced practitioners who volunteered to speak on the interaction of the Bankruptcy Code and the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. This very successful program was held Nov. 19 at the USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Participants included the PACA Unit's D.C.-area legal staff, as well as PACA personnel in Illinois, who joined in via video conferencing technology. ABI plans to offer similar customized bankruptcy training for other agencies, beginning with the U.S. Department of Labor's Black Lung Unit in early 2004.
  • Spoke on discharge and collateral retention issues in the consumer portion of the "Nuts & Bolts" Program, and served as moderator for a panel on ethics in consumer bankruptcy practice at ABI's Winter Leadership Conference in La Quinta, Calif., in December.
  • At the wonderful ABI Symposium marking the 25th Anniversary of the Bankruptcy Code, I introduced the three speakers on consumer bankruptcy. The symposium, the brainchild of former ABI Scholars G. Ray Warner and Margaret Howard, drew many of the nation's leading bankruptcy law professors to hear and comment on major papers presented by Barry Adler, Douglas Baird, Elizabeth Warren and James J. White, evaluating the Code's successes and shortcomings. The Symposium was held at the Georgetown University Law Center in October, and the proceedings will be published in an upcoming issue of the ABI Law Review.
  • Wrote comments on several pieces of proposed legislation, at the request of staffers for congressional committees. These concerned proposed changes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Act's bank insolvency provisions, as well as to the venue, preference and fraudulent conveyance sections of the Bankruptcy Code.
  • Sat in on Supreme Court oral arguments on bankruptcy cases and wrote summaries of the arguments for the ABI Update.
  • Taped interviews for television and radio programs, including CBS News, CBS Marketwatch, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, CNN Financial News, Bloomberg News, NPR's Marketplace, KXL Radio in Portland, Ore., and WAMC in Albany, N.Y.
  • On a daily basis, answered questions from the press, public, judiciary and ABI members on all matters relating to bankruptcy, and often sent follow-up articles and other written materials as well. The most unexpected query came from People Magazine: Would ABI like to nominate several of its members for People's latest "Sexiest Men (with Brains)" list? Questioners included a high school student in Chicago, a scholar in Austria, E-Bay Auto's sales manager, and magazine and newspaper reporters from the Wall Street Journal to the Swedish News to the AMA's American Medical News. The range of questions was challenging. On any single day, queries could cover remedies for season ticket-holders of a bankrupt orchestra, filing statistics in the 1920s, how to interpret the details of a chapter 11 petition and schedules of a telecommunications firm, and whether an increasing percentage of physicians are filing bankruptcy. Most inquiries, however, concerned either the reasons for current consumer filing rates or progress in particular chapter 11 cases, especially Enron and WorldCom.
  • Edited and substantially rewrote a chapter on priorities under revised UCC Article 9 for a proposed ABI publication.
  • Attended meetings of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, the ABA's Administrative Law Section and the ABI's Views from the Bench, all in Washington, D.C.

My few months as the ABI Resident Scholar were an exciting new challenge and a wonderful change of pace. The opportunity to work on ABI publications, talk with so many reporters and others, and to get to know ABI's great staff was very valuable. Seeing firsthand what wonderful leadership ABI enjoys and the efforts ABI staffers make to serve the membership makes it clear why this organization has grown so rapidly in influence as well as in numbers. I am grateful to Sam Gerdano and the rest of the ABI headquarters crew for their many kindnesses, and their willingness to let me to commute from Omaha to undertake these responsibilities. The ABI Endowment is to be commended for adding this innovative resident scholar position to the portfolio it underwrites.

The next Robert M. Zinman ABI Resident Scholar is Roger Whelan, currently in private practice in Washington, D.C. and an adjunct professor at Catholic University School of Law. While prior scholars have had extensive experience in teaching and private practice, Roger will bring a new dimension to the position, for he is the first scholar with experience on the bankruptcy bench. Roger's 11 years as a Washington, D.C., bankruptcy judge should greatly enrich the insight he will bring to the office of resident scholar.

Marianne B. Culhane

Dean of the Law School

Professor of Law

[email protected]

Professor David G. Epstein, Resident Scholar, Spring 2003

Prof. David G. Epstein is the George E. Allen Chair Professor of Law at the University of Richmond Law School in Richmond, Va., and the Spring 2003 ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar-in-Residence. Previously, he practiced law with King & Spalding and Haynes and Boone, served as dean of two law schools and taught at a number of other law schools. Prof. Epstein has co-authored numerous casebooks and texts for law students, including a three-volume treatise on bankruptcy. He received his LL.M. from Harvard University.

Professor G. Ray Warner, Resident Scholar, Fall 2002

Prof. G. Ray Warner is a professor of law and the associate dean of bankruptcy studies at St. John's University School of Law in New York and directs its LL.M. in Bankruptcy program. He is also Of Counsel to Greenberg Traurig LLP. Prior to joining the St. John's faculty, Prof. Warner was the William P. Boreland Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. He is a former ABI Robert M. Zinman Resident Scholar and has published numerous articles in the bankruptcy, commercial law and consumer law areas. He has also consulted in many major bankruptcy and consumer law cases. Prof. Warner is a founder of the American Board of Certification and is an ABI director and former Secretary. He is also a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy, a founding member of the International Insolvency Institute and an editor of the International Insolvency Law Review, and served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Post-Graduate Legal Education. Prof. Warner also serves as co-advisor to the ABI Law Review and heads the national Conrad B. Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition, both of which are co-sponsored by St. John's and ABI. Prof. Warner holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Emory University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, an LL.M. in corporation law from New York University School of Law and a J.D. cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law.

Resident Scholar Letter 

It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve ABI as the Robert M. Zinman Scholar from September through December 2002. The fall term as scholar was unusually hectic because of the combination of legislative activity and record bankruptcy filings. I am very proud of all that we were able to achieve and would not have been able to accomplish so much without the support and assistance of ABI's professional headquarter's staff and the energy and vision of its executive director, Sam Gerdano. It is clear that ABI has succeeded in building a reputation with Congress and the media as the premier source for unbiased bankruptcy information.
In addition to the perennial battle over the bankruptcy reform legislation, which culmin-ated in an "edge-of-the-seat" House vote in November, the Enron and WorldCom filings generated a spate of proposed bills addressing concerns about employee issues in bankruptcy and excessive executive compensation. As scholar, I prepared summaries of each proposed bill and analyses of particular aspects of the reform legislation and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for the ABI Journal, the ABI World web site and e-mail membership alerts. As a testament to ABI's status on the Hill, I was consulted by both Republican and Democratic staffers for technical advice on a variety of proposed bankruptcy legislative initiatives.
The legislative activity, record level of consumer filings and record corporate cases both in size and complexity generated several hundred press inquires about the bankruptcy system. It was not unusual to conduct several interviews in a single day, ranging from media organizations like The Wall Street Journal, NBC and National Public Radio to small-town newspapers and radio stations.
During my four months as scholar, I attended numerous conferences as ABI's representative and delivered eight speeches or panel presentations on a range of bankruptcy issues. I also assisted ABI staff on a number of ABI projects and conferences, including numerous current development alerts, the forthcoming First Day Orders Manual, and a reception for bankruptcy law professors at the annual convention of the Association of American Law Schools. I worked closely with Sam Gerdano and former ABI Scholar Margaret Howard to complete the planning for ABI's upcoming academic symposium commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Bankruptcy Code. The symposium, scheduled for October, promises to be the decade's most significant academic bankruptcy conference, with papers and presentations from more than a dozen leading bankruptcy scholars.
I followed in the footsteps of the first two scholars-Prof. Jack Williams and Prof. Howard-and tried to build upon the solid foundation they established for the program. I am pleased to leave the scholar position in the extremely capable hands of Prof. David Epstein, who is the spring 2003 scholar, and Prof. Marianne Culhane, who will join the program next fall. 

Prof. G. Ray Warner
William P. Boreland Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Law
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law; Kansas City, Mo.

Professor Margaret Howard, Resident Scholar, Spring 2002
Prof. Margaret Howard is the Law Alumni Association Professor of Law at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. She has also served on the faculties of Vanderbilt and St. Louis Universities, and has visited at Duke, Emory, UNC and Washington University. During the spring of 2001, Prof. Howard was the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, and in the fall of 2005 she was the Charles E. Tweedy, Jr. Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Alabama. Prof. Howard served as ABI's resident scholar in the spring of 2002. A member of the Order of the Coif and the American Law Institute, she is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and is listed in Who's Who of American Women. One of her articles, "Shifting Risk and Fixing Blame: The Vexing Problem of Credit Card Obligations in Bankruptcy," 75 Am. Bankr. L.J. 63 (2001), won the Editors' Prize for the best article published in the Journal in that year, and she has written chapters in two treatises: "Bankruptcy and the Real Estate Lessor" in Bankruptcy Reorganization (Hendel, Hillinger & Queenan, eds.), and "Exemptions" in Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice. Prof. Howard is a former vice-chair of the ABA Business Bankruptcy Committee's Avoiding Powers Subcommittee and is past chair of the section on Creditors' and Debtors' Rights of the Association of American Law Schools. She has served on the faculties of the American Board of Certification and the Association of Certified Turnaround Professionals. She currently serves as ABI's Vice President-Research Grants. Prof. Howard received her undergraduate degree from Duke University, her J.D. and M.S.W. from Washington University in St. Louis and her LL.M. from Yale Law School.
Resident Scholar Letter

My tenure as Scholar in Residence ran from Jan. 1-May 24, 2002. My duties included preparing materials for conferences, presenting at conferences, responding to media requests, doing interviews for newspaper stories and for radio programs both taped and live, responding to ABI members' various questions, as well as bankruptcy questions raised by non-member attorneys and members of the public, assisting the Endowment Committee on the review of research grant proposals, and rewriting ABI publications.

During my tenure at ABI, I completed the following tasks:

  • Participated as a faculty member at the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Conference in Philadelphia. This program required leading a discussion of a hypothetical with several different groups of conference attendees.
  • Presented a program on recent developments regarding dischargeability, with an emphasis on credit card obligations and willful and malicious injuries. This program, sponsored by the Federal Judicial Center, was for bankruptcy judges and was given twice-in San Diego and Cleveland.
  • Prepared substantial materials for, and participated on a panel at, ABI's Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Conference in Denver. The panel's overall topic was dischargeability, and my assignment was a discussion on education loans.
  • Attended the Spring Meeting of the ABA Business Law Section in Boston, and moderated a panel on preference issues for the Avoiding Powers Subcommittee of the Business Bankruptcy Committee. I am the vice-chair of that subcommittee.
  • Participated on a panel at ABI's Annual Spring Meeting dealing with dischargeability. I assisted in the preparation of substantial materials for the panel, and discussed the issue of willful and malicious injuries.
  • Presented a keynote address to the Northwest Bankruptcy Institute in Portland, Ore., sponsored by the Oregon and Washington Bar Associations. My topic was the contract and property theories underlying the Supreme Court's analysis of the rights of secured creditors in bankruptcy.
  • Prepared materials and presented a program on the intersection between revised Article 9 and bankruptcy for the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference in Cleveland.
  • Participated in ABI's Northeast Bankruptcy Conference this summer on Cape Cod, speaking on the ethical implications of pre-bankruptcy planning.
  • Appeared twice on a live radio talk show in New Orleans-the "Ed Clancy Show". Both times, we discussed consumer bankruptcy and the pending amendments.
  • Taped an interview for a syndicated radio program, "The Wizards of Money", out of Atlanta.
  • Accompanied Judge Erwin I. Katz to the Federal Judicial Center and met with staff members there in an effort to collect materials for the ABI web site on mediation and alternative dispute resolution techniques useful in bankruptcy cases.
  • Attended a hearing of the House-Senate Conference Com-mittee that is attempting to resolve the last of the issues regarding the pending bankruptcy amend-ments.
  • Reviewed and edited ABI's publication on preference law.
  • Reorganized and completely rewrote ABI's Bankruptcy Over-view.

Began, with the assistance of Prof. G. Ray Warner, the in-coming scholar in residence, to organize a scholarly program to mark the 25th anniversary of the Bankruptcy Code. This program, which will be held in October 2003, will be targeted at law professors specializing in bankruptcy. We now have commitments for major papers from four of the top people in the field-Barry Adler, Elizabeth Warren, Douglas Baird and James J. White. I will continue to work on this project despite leaving the position as scholar in residence.

Continued flexibility is the key to the success of this program. Sam Gerdano, ABI's Executive Director, was understanding of the fact that I came in with several commitments that required me to take time for preparation of materials and presentations. I also continued to teach one course at the law school, which occasionally required my attention while I was physically at ABI. Nonetheless, the opportunity to deal with the media and with developments in Congress, and to work on an ABI publication, is very attractive and should continue to draw professors to this position.

This semester has gone by incredibly quickly, probably because it has been such a wonderful opportunity. I echo the sentiments of my predecessor, Prof. Jack F. Williams, regarding the terrific staff at ABI and its executive director, Sam Gerdano. The organization is top-notch, largely because of its leadership. I have learned an enormous amount-so much that I fear I may have gotten more than I've given.

I never seem to accomplish as much as I would like, and this semester has been no exception. However, my major contributions, the Bankruptcy Overview and the forthcoming symposium, were done and are being done right. I also have a great deal of confidence in Prof. Warner, who will succeed me as scholar in residence. He will certainly raise the bar for the future.

Prof. Margaret Howard

Washington & Lee University; Lexington, Va.

 

Professor Jack F. Williams, Resident Scholar, Fall 2001

Jack F. Williams is a tenured professor at Georgia State University College of Law and the Middle East Institute in Atlanta, where he teaches and/or conducts research in the areas of bankruptcy and business reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, commercial law and damages models, corporate finance, financial markets, fraud and anti-corruption, Islamic markets and finance, taxation, public finance and law and statistics. He is also the national co-director of the Litigation, Investigation and Intelligence Services practice and senior managing director at Mesirow Financial Consulting, LLC in Atlanta and New York, where he provides consulting and expert witness services in the areas of business restructuring, bankruptcy and insolvency taxation, distressed banking, fraud and fraudulent transfers, Ponzi schemes, distressed business valuations, forensic investigations, claims estimations, capital markets, avoidable actions, plan confirmation and cramdown issues, and governance matters. Mr. Williams is the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors Scholar in Residence and also served as the inaugural Robert M. Zinman ABI Scholar in Residence in 2001, returning to that post in 2008. He is also a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy. Mr. Williams has a B.A. in economics from the University of Oklahoma, a J.D. with high honors from the George Washington University National Law Center, and a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Leicester.

Resident Scholar's Letter

My tenure as scholar-in-residence ran from April 2001 to Dec. 31, 2001. My duties included preparing materials for conferences and classes, presenting at conferences and seminars, responding to media requests, making television and radio appearances, appearing before the Congress, preparing white papers for Congressional staffers, responding to ABI members on legislative status and miscellaneous questions, responding to the general public with bankruptcy issues and concerns, writing/editing ABI publications, assisting the Endowment Committee on the review of research grant applications, and coordinating ABI efforts with other nonprofit organizations.

During my tenure at ABI, my tasks included:

  • Authored two articles for the ABI Law Review. The first article is an empirical piece on collateral dispositions under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The second piece is on the treatment of certain tax claims under a chapter 11 plan of reorganization.
  • Authored one article on directors' and officers' duties within the zone of insolvency for the Journal of Corporate Renewal.
  • Authored the 2001 Cumulative Supplement to Kennedy, Countryman and Williams on Partnerships, Limited Liability Entities and S Corporations in Bankruptcy, published by Aspen Publishers (formerly Little, Brown & Co.).
  • Authored the 2001 Cumulative Supplement to McQueen and Williams on Tax Aspects of Bankruptcy Law and Procedure, published by the West Group.
  • Authored four articles for the ABI Journal on legislation.
  • Prepared six Powerpoint presentations that cover key provisions of the proposed bankruptcy legislation to be used on the ABI web site.
  • Authored five "Cracking the Code" articles for posting on the ABI web site.
  • Responded to more than 200 media requests for information and appeared on radio and television, including NBC Nightly News, ABC Evening News, MSNBC, Dateline, The Today Show, CNN, 60 Minutes II, FoxNews and C-Span.
  • Appeared before the House and Senate committees and staff meetings on bankruptcy, bankruptcy taxation, and terrorism and homeland defense.
  • Prepared materials for talks given to the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration, the PBGC, the EPA, HUD, and the Department of Justice.
  • Prepared materials for talks given to ABI, the TMA, State and Local Bar Associations, State CPA Societies, the American Association of Law Schools, and the AICPA.
  • Coordinated with JumpStart Coalition to prepare bankruptcy lesson plans for use in elementary, junior high school, and high school.
  • Edited manuscript by Prof. Jack Ayer and Michael Bernstein.

I joined ABI as a newly minted bankruptcy practitioner more than 15 years ago. I continued my membership when I joined the academic ranks some 10 years ago. I have been involved with ABI most of my membership and have found the organization and the people first-rate. So for me, becoming the inaugural ABI Robert M. Zinman Scholar-in-Residence was a profound honor. Upon accepting the position, I had but one goal-to make ABI and the position's namesake (my mentor) proud of their selection. I hope that I have not let you down.

When I began my tenure, my wife and I thought that the ABI Endowment Fund served many worthwhile causes, including funding, in part, the scholar-in-residence program. Based on our prior experience with ABI and the new position as the ABI scholar-in-residence, we believed that we should begin giving back to the organization that has given so much to us. With that, we donated 5 percent of my gross pay from ABI to the Endowment Fund. It is, without doubt, one of the best decisions we have ever made.

Thank you for the grand opportunity to serve you as your scholar-in-residence. It was a great honor and privilege. May the position go from strength to strength.

Prof. Jack F. Williams