Alexandria, Va. — The American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) announces that John Penn of Perkins Coie LLP (Dallas) received ABI’s 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award during ABI’s luncheon at the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Annual Conference, which took place on Oct. 8, 2021, in Indianapolis. ABI’s highest award recognizes the recipient’s sustained and deep commitment to the leadership and governance of the organization in a number of roles over many years. An ABI member since 1988 and a former ABI president and chairman, Penn is the firmwide chair of Perkins Coie’s Bankruptcy & Restructuring Practice. Licensed by the Supreme Court of Texas in 1982 and the Supreme Court, Appellate Division of New York in 2010, he has been an active bankruptcy and insolvency practitioner for almost 40 years. 

In addition to serving as ABI president during 2005-06, when the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 became effective, and later as its chairman, Penn continues his service to the organization as a Co-Chair of the ABI Task Force on Veterans and Servicemembers Affairs. The mission of the Task Force is to unite and effectively deploy the best of the varied talent resources within ABI to understand, respond to and coordinate with other institutions and organizations to educate, remediate and prevent adverse debt concerns and impacts on veterans and servicemembers. He also is a former chairman and past president of the American Board of Certification, the only organization providing board certification of attorneys in business bankruptcy, consumer bankruptcy and creditors’ rights law throughout the U.S.

Penn has been Board Certified in Business Bankruptcy Law by both the American Board of Certification and the Texas Board of Legal Specialization for almost 30 years. He has written extensively on bankruptcy and reorganization topics, and his work has been published in the ABI Law Review, the ABI Journal and a number of other publications.

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ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues. The ABI membership includes nearly 10,000 attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround specialists and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on ABI, visit www.abiworld.org. For additional conference information, visit www.abi.org/events.