Consumer

The panelists will touch on recent cases and offer their prognostications as to the future of the equitable mootness doctrine.

Emails, text messages, Snapchat: Nobody ever calls anymore. Firing off an email three minutes after somebody made you angry gives rise to any number of issues, one of them being that once the “send” button is hit, electronically stored information (ESI) is created. This panel will discuss the ethical duties to preserve and the discovery duties to produce ESI, and remedies for violations of either — including the duty to refrain from obstruction of access to evidence, the ethical duty to refrain from unlawful alteration or destruction of evidence (spoliation), and the duty to make diligent efforts to comply with discovery requests. Also covered will be the necessary protocols that clients should have in place prior to litigation, remedies for failure to preserve ESI under Fed. Rule Civ. P. 37(e), and other remedies for discovery violations. Amendments to Rule 37(e) (effective December 2015), as well as courts’ and litigants’ experiences with amended Rule 37(e), will also be discussed.

Hosted by the Ethics & Professional Compensation and Technology & Intellectual Property Committees Navigating the use and impact of the media in any bankruptcy case can pose challenging ethical dilemmas that are only exacerbated in highprofile cases. The panelists will explore these issues and share some of their personal insights and stories.

Recent court decisions on legal ethics of which you should be aware. Come join an interactive discussion on the latest examples of unethical behavior — you may be surprised by what you hear.

This panel will present a detailed look at filing foreclosures, state law defenses and post-judgment foreclosure matters, and when to file bankruptcy in the process.

This session will use a common fact pattern and feature demonstrations of arguments and examinations regarding such evidentiary issues as whether a witness may appear by telephone, video or deposition; admissibility of expert testimony on value; whether an expert may rely on the testimony of other experts; when lay witness testimony on value may be admissible; and demonstrations of examinations of experts and nonexperts regarding valuation and other common issues that arise in evidentiary hearings. By extensively using role play, this session will create real settings for consumer bankruptcy attorneys to help them handle evidentiary hearings in bankruptcy court.

This session will provide an in-depth look at recognizing these types of claims and determining when and how to file the actions.

Equal Monthly Payments; Consequences of Surrender and Pay Direct; Rule 3001(c) issues; Fee-Shifting under Rule 3002.1; Circuit Splits on Service of Objections to Claims and Bar Dates for Secured Creditors; Unscheduled Claims

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.

If you’re ready for the challenge (or at least are willing to give it a try), come play “What’s My Objection?” at this session and test your skills at asserting evidentiary objections. Join the panelists in this fun format as we confront the strategic and technical issues associated with making objections.