Consumer

This panel will feature a roundtable discussion with bankruptcy judges from the Ninth Circuit and across the country. The judges will share their thoughts and perspectives, as well as take questions from the audience, on topics of current interest in both business and consumer cases.

The once booming golf course industry has resorted to bankruptcy as a way to address operational and liquidity issues. This panel explores the financial challenges facing America’s golf courses and selected restructuring issues that debtors and creditors face in their attempts to reorganize.

Panel will provide an overview of the intersection between bankruptcy and family law. The discussion will include the effects on property of the estate when one spouse does not file, community and separate property issues, scope of automatic stay, collection against non-debtor spouse, and other related family law issues as they intersect with bankruptcy.

Learn from others’ mistakes and experiences. The panel will share tips and painful lessons on anticipating and avoiding ethical and legal problems in business restructuring cases.

This panel will consist of four short "moot court/pro-con" presentations on current chapter 11 issues, with the Judge to be a “hot bench” and also give his insights at the conclusion of each segment.

Panel will highlight practice risks that include debtor and creditor viewpoints. The topics will include: tracking and anticipating obvious and unknown deadlines, appreciating inherent conflicts that may pose ethical problems as well as critical path obstacles to hidden conflicts of interest, springing conflicts of interest, undisclosed client expectations creating dissatisfaction with the process and outcome, and underestimating expense and delay leading to crisis of payment and inability to effectuate strategy.

This annual favorite will cover all recent bankruptcy law decisions and current consumer bankruptcy law issues, and is a must-attend for professionals to stay current on consumer bankruptcy law issues.

The chapter 13 debtor’s plan is expiring, and the trustee issues a notice of final cure payment and completion of plan payments. Your client tells you it’s wrong and says there are uncured pre-petition and post-petition defaults, escrow shortages and unpaid attorney fees. What do you do? This session will cover understanding Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002.1 and Local Bankruptcy Rule 2015-3 (E.D. Mich.); reviewing all notices of payment changes, fees and expenses; comparing records with the trustee and debtor, and obtaining discovery; the proper procedure to file and prosecute responses disagreeing with notice of final cure payment; case law regarding remedies under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002.1(i) for failure to comply with the rule’s requirements; and implementing steps to comply with the discharge order.

It is not uncommon for issues to arise in consumer cases after they are filed regarding pre-petition and post-petition tax liabilities. To make sure that a client understands the possible outcome of these issues and is not surprised when they crop up after the bankruptcy petition is filed, it is imperative that debtor’s counsel alert and counsel the debtor about these potential issues before the petition is filed. What tax clams are nondischargeable? What constitutes a tax return for purposes of § 523? What is a tax transcript, how can one get one from the IRS, and how does one interpret what it says? This session will also focus on understanding the implications of unfiled returns and substitute returns, especially the current split among the circuits regarding late-filed returns and their consequences for determining dischargeability, distinguishing the treatment for secured, priority and general unsecured claims in chapters 7 and 13, interest on secured or nondischargeable tax claims, and advising the client as to whether chapter 7 or 13 is the best course of action to deal with the debtor’s tax liabilities.

This session will focus on debtors’ attorneys’ pre-bankruptcy advice and planning regarding the protection of a debtor’s assets, including maximizing exemptions without getting into trouble, analyzing and counseling the client on the vulnerability of transfers of property that the debtor already made to family members or trusts before seeking your counsel, permissible actions to mitigate liabilities on account of a debtor’s pre-petition transfers, what can legitimately and ethically be done to enable debtors to maximize their exemptions without jeopardizing their discharges, and the use of family trusts, self-settled trusts and the effect of the new Domestic Asset Protection Trust Act in Michigan.