Business

This panel offers an overview of current economic trends, market conditions, and financial indicators shaping the restructuring and bankruptcy landscape. Experts will discuss how shifts in interest rates, credit markets, industry performance and other developments may impact businesses and inform strategic decision-making for practitioners and stakeholders alike.Learning ObjectivesAttendees will analyze current economic trends and financial indicators impacting the restructuring and bankruptcy landscape.Attendees will evaluate how changes in interest rates, credit markets, and industry performance influence business distress and restructuring strategies.

This panel provides an update on key threats affecting restructuring and credit markets. William Rule discusses the current economic environment, especially the federal deficit, private credit stress, potential bubbles in the stock market, the concentration of wealth and other threats.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify key macroeconomic threats currently affecting restructuring and credit markets, including federal deficit dynamics and emerging stress in private credit.Attendees will analyze the potential impact of taxes and tariffs on economic stability, corporate capital structures, and distressed investment opportunities.Attendees will evaluate indicators of asset bubbles and wealth concentration trends, and assess their implications for restructuring practitioners and credit market participants.

Work/Life Balance: Is it really a thing? This session explores the critical connection between attorney well-being, the duty of competence and professional liability, examining how stress, burnout and impairment can affect ethical decision-making and client representation. Participants gain practical strategies to support personal well-being, reduce malpractice risk, and fulfill their professional and ethical obligations while maintaining a sustainable legal practice.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify the connection between attorney's well-being, burnout, and impairment, and recognize how these factors can compromise the duty of competence and increase professional liability exposure.Attendees will apply practical strategies for managing stress and maintaining personal well-being that support sound ethical decision-making and effective client representation.Attendees will evaluate risk-management practices that reduce malpractice exposure while fulfilling professional and ethical obligations within a sustainable legal practice.

This advanced panel explores the complex ethical landscape surrounding artificial intelligence implementation in bankruptcy and legal practice. Moving beyond basic AI introductions, the panelists examine real-world AI functionality, use cases and usage statistics, judicial perspectives on AI compliance, and practical ethical challenges facing practitioners today. Through interactive polling, case studies, and expert insights, attendees gain actionable guidance on navigating AI ethics within existing professional conduct frameworks.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify key ethical considerations arising from the use of artificial intelligence in bankruptcy and legal practice, including issues related to competence, confidentiality, supervision, and professional responsibility.Attendees will evaluate real-world AI functionality, use cases, and emerging judicial perspectives to assess the benefits, risks, and limitations of AI tools in legal workflows.Attendees will apply existing professional conduct frameworks and AI compliance principles to address practical ethical challenges and develop responsible AI implementation strategies within their practices.

This panel will focus on the ethical issues that can surround taking on an engagement — everything from evaluating conflicts, mandatory and recommended disclosures, and what it really means to be disinterested.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify common ethical issues that arise when considering whether to accept a new engagement, including how to evaluate potential conflicts of interest.Attendees will understand mandatory and recommended disclosure requirements and how they apply when determining whether a professional can serve in a matter.Attendees will examine the meaning of "disinterestedness" in practice and apply practical strategies for assessing and maintaining compliance with ethical standards when taking on a case.

This panel examines the ethical and procedural framework governing inadvertent disclosures of privileged materials in bankruptcy practice. The discussion explores the bankruptcy-specific complications (from compressed discovery timelines and multi-party productions to trustee succession issues) that arise when privilege is breached and offering practical guidance for preventing and managing these disclosures.Learning Objectives:Attendees will understand the ethics rules and procedural framework (Model Rules 1.6(c) and 4.4(b), FRCP 26(b)(5)(B), and FRE 502(b)) governing inadvertent disclosure of privileged materials and the duties triggered.Attendees will recognize bankruptcy-specific complications that heighten inadvertent disclosure risk, including compressed case timelines, multi-party document flows among debtors, committees, and trustees, and privilege succession issues following trustee appointment.Attendees will identify practical strategies for preventing inadvertent disclosures and effectively managing a clawback dispute once one occurs, from FRE 502(d) orders and tiered review protocols to crisis-response steps for producing and receiving counsel.

Catch up with Ferris Bueller as he faces consequences from his infamous “Day Off.” Can Ferris navigate the Federal Rules of Evidence and manage the admissibility of information from the Wayback Machine’s archives? Will his debts be excepted from discharge? Join us and find out.

Financial fraud schemes frequently come to light when businesses are in distress, causing restructuring professionals and bankruptcy courts to deal with the fallout. This panel examines how fraud trends can shift with economic cycles and developing technology, including key moments when misconduct begins to surface, particularly around market peaks and downturns. The panelists discuss various schemes — financial statement misstatements, asset-shifting through multi-tiered entities and Ponzi structures — sharing insights on emerging risks, warning signs, and how practitioners can better anticipate and respond.Learning Objectives:Attendees will understand how financial fraud schemes have evolved in recent years and the unique challenges they present in bankruptcy proceedings.Attendees will identify common indicators of fraudulent conduct and assess the tools available to practitioners for investigating suspicious transactions and structures.Attendees will apply lessons learned from recent fraud cases to develop proactive strategies for protecting estates, creditors and other stakeholders from emerging fraud risks.

This panel will provide newer attorneys with a practical overview of first-day motions in chapter 11 cases, covering the essential relief debtors typically seek at the outset of a bankruptcy filing and offering guidance on how to effectively prepare, organize and present these critical early-case pleadings.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify the key types of first day motions commonly filed in Chapter 11 cases and understand the relief typically sought at the outset of a bankruptcy proceeding.Attendees will evaluate best practices for preparing and organizing first day pleadings to effectively support debtor needs in the early stages of a case.Attendees will assess practical strategies for presenting first day motions in a clear and persuasive manner before the court.

This panel will discuss the key legal frameworks governing foreign evidence collection and judgment enforcement across several jurisdictions, including the U.S., England and the Cayman Islands. The panelists will discuss practical strategies for obtaining and using evidence from cross-border investigations in insolvency proceedings, including cross-border cooperation and recognition mechanisms, as well as discovery tools such as § 1782 and Rule 2004, Norwich Pharmacal orders and officeholder powers.