No CLE

Consumer

This panel will discuss a variety of issues surrounding the use of plan-support agreements, including their structure, goals and benefits, their impact on non-signatories, disclosure and solicitation issues, lessons learned from recent cases (Innkeepers and Indianapolis Downs), and the applicability of plan-support agreements in middle-market cases.

Debtors frequently emerge from bankruptcy still burdened by a burgeoning student loan debt. A private “loan for an educational benefit” can limit the fresh start many debtors need is increasingly being used to test the nondischargeability of might have once been general unsecured claims. This panel will discuss the emerging issues and case law surrounding nondischargeability, as well as strategies for maximizing the benefits of the bankruptcy system for struggling debtors.

The information you glean from Part I needs to be viewed with the practical approach found in Part II. If you are challenging dischargeability, how do you prove it? All debtors are in a hardship, but what is an undue hardship, and again, what evidence should you have at the ready to prove the debtor’s case. Using a short vignette, this panel will address the evidentiary and practical quandaries that must be overcome in order to plead and prove a case for dischargeability of loans under Section 523(a)(8).

Discussion on the chapter 7 trustees’ powers to do a carve-out, the new use of short sales in chapter 7, and the most effective way to sell assets in today’s economic environment. Does the creditor have a say in the trustee’s course of action?

The rules regarding recovery of preferential transfers and available defenses can vary from court to court and circuit to circuit. This panel will provide financial advisors with what they need to know to understand the current state of the law on preference recoveries and will provide practical advice to enable financial professionals to conduct their own preference analyses.

An overview of the chapter 9 process, why municipalities do or do not file for chapter 9 protection, and the financial liabilities municipalities face, including bond debt, budget shortfalls, unfunded pension liabilities and costly union contracts. The discussion includes methods for restructuring bond debt under a plan of adjustment, issues related to general obligation bonds and special revenue bonds, how such claims are treated under Chapter 9, and related plan confirmation and valuation issues.

In this 90-minute seminar, Professors Andrew Kull of Boston University School of Law and Scott Pryor of Regent University School of Law provide an in-depth analysis of a legal principle which has become, in their words, "a long-lost area of the law"—§ 541 of the Bankruptcy Code. Seeking to demystify what is meant by "property of the estate" and, in particular, the distinction between legal or equitable interests of the debtor in property, Kull and Pryor describe the legal entanglements that ensue when legal title belongs to one person but the equitable title belongs to someone else. Written materials included.

Panelists will cover the proper disclosure of assets in a Chapter 7 proceeding held pre-petition as well as assets obtained post-petition and after confirmation of a Chapter 13 plan, including the debtor’s continuing duty and the timing of required disclosures. Properly advise your client when there has been a change of income, receipt of inheritance, life insurance, lawsuit proceeds, or a national mortgage settlement. Gain knowledge of the implications for making or failing to make the disclosures of the debtor’s assets.